Dedicated Follower of Fashion

Dedicated Notes: Home For Christmas

Christmas in the UK is a big deal, in the US it never feels like it takes on quite the same level of magic that it does in the UK. Perhaps it's the over-commercialization, perhaps it's the fact that the US is "technically" a secular country - I say technically because obviously religion can bar same sex marriage - boo - but we can't say Merry Christmas... I think I know which is the more heinous of the two.... and of course, in Los Angeles at least, the weather plays a factor.

So I was overjoyed to have the opportunity to go home for Christmas this time around, for the first time in six years and the first time with Mr Style ever. Christmas at my home is quite the celebration, we had 9 under one roof and 11 round the table for Christmas Dinner (and that's not even technically a full house, we were missing a brother and a sister and law)

The following snaps offer a glimpse into my family Christmas :)

(picture above, Elizabeth & Jack, my niece and nephew upon discovering the trove of gifts Father Christmas had deposited under the tree)

Jack was fed up of getting oranges in his stocking (he doesn't like them) so Father Christmas left him a coconut instead.

Elizabeth is a prolific reader, so a Nook was a choice gift for her from Father Christmas :)

Elizabeth used a loom she was given earlier in the year to weave a scarf for her Pops (my Dad)

Mr Style was blessed with a new disguise for Christmas, courtesy of my baby sister, Josephine.

Mr Style forgot my stocking & ran out of wrapping paper. So he made do. Hahah. Also, my pajamas are awesome, and from Victoria's Secret (and now on sale for $30!)

Alcohol does play a rather prominent part in our Christmas day. Mr Style enjoying his morning Mimosa, minus the OJ. Also this the first pic I took with my Christmas present - a fixed 50mm lens! Woo.

My baby sister, Jo, enjoying her vintage goodies (my gift to her) complete with PJ pants and disguise....

My brother-in-law, James clearing up the wrapping paper storm that hit our living room. Complete with disguise of course (does anyone sense a theme?)

My Grandma, Josie (wearing Lulu*s & Primark) and Me (wearing J.Crew and H&M). My Grandma and Granddad (who we call Papa & Gran Anna) didn't know we were visiting until Christmas morning - it was quite the Christmas surprise. Oh - and the paper crowns? British Christmas tradition, they come inside our Christmas crackers!

Josie and Elizabeth playing with the Nook.

Charlie the dog (my sister's) looking on (and an excuse to play with the focus on my new lens!)

Josie got herself a Christmas present - a DSLR. Now we're camera twins (and I'm ensuring she'll put it to good use!)

My Mum and the family dog, Grace.

Josie looking glam fireside

My Papa.

Next year I want them all to come for Cali Christmas... but I'm going to need a few more rooms!

Kelsi x

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!

Sorry for the radio silence - between a new contract for the Stylesmith team, The Snowball and a planned/unplanned trip to England for the holidays blogging dropped pretty low on the priority list but my England trip (first Christmas at home in 6 years!) has provided me with plenty of content for the next couple of weeks, not to mention catching up on pre-Christmas content, you'll be sick of me soon enough.

I had two new years eve's this time around, both somewhat uneventful. The first was spent on a Virgin Atlantic plane somewhere above Greenland (GMT) and then the second was spent half asleep and jet lagged on my couch (PST) but I expect the year itself to be slightly more eventful ;)

2012 was a big year for me. I saw a lot of what I've been working on for the past few years bear fruit - and it was very gratifying. I look forward to more of the same in 2013.

I'll leave you with a few of my highlights :)

February 2012: LAFC "London Calling Show Rooms"

In February I took 10 L.A designers to London Fashion Week as my first move as the Director of Los Angeles Fashion Council and landed in Vogue UK! An amazing experience and fantastic welcome from my homeland.

February 2012: London Fashion Week

Even though I got horribly sick (you can almost see it in my face in this pic at Somerset House) and only made it to three shows, London Fashion Week was a blast. The fashion innovation, both on the runway and on the street, is exceptional and it's my favourite fashion week.  

March 2012: Five Years of Marriage

In March the wonderful Mr Style and celebrated our first five years of marriage (the first wedding - the Vegas one!) Who knew eloping after only 6 weeks of knowing each other would work out quite so well?

June 2012: The #DixieTrip

In June Mr Style and I took a much needed vacation and a trip of a lifetime, and drove from New Orleans to Chicago, up the Mississippi River, through Tennessee and up to Chicago. A taste of, err, "real America".

You can see some of the coverage here.

July 2012: The Two Point Oh! LA - Third Annual Picnic and Birthday

In July, Two Point Oh! LA celebrated our birthday with our Third Annual Picnic - royal style. There's nothing like a picnic in the park with some of LA's best bloggers. Though I think we may have grown out of Griffith Park (just figuratively!)

August 2012: #RoadtoMAGIC

In August 2012 I (as Stylesmith and with MAGIC) took 30 bloggers on a bus, through the desert to Las Vegas to cover and participate in MAGIC Market Week. It was an overwhelming experience and I'm so happy to be part of this team (in 2013 too!)

You can see all the bloggers coverage on the Road to MAGIC blog.

September 2012: New York Fashion Week

I flew by New York Fashion week for, literally, the weekend. And whilst I did catch some shows (Band of Outsiders, Imitation of Christ amongst others) I was technically there to work with LAFC and Simply Stylist. But all work and no play makes Kelsi a dull girl, and my New York Fashion week became so much more about connecting with my girlfriends and dancing the night away.

October 2012: The Los Angeles Collections

This one damn near killed me. The Los Angeles Fashion Council, Los Angeles Collections, had me swearing off fashion and spending a silly amount of money, sweat and tears to pull it off. But seeing the work of all our designers in the beautiful setting that is Carondelet House and the response that they received, including E!, LA Times, Style Network and the front page of WWD, made it worthwhile and made me willing to do it all again this March.

December 2012: The Third Annual Snowball

The Two Point Oh! LA Annual Snowball is one of my favourite events of the year, and this year's, bigger and better than ever, was no exception! Any excuse to don a gown and celebrate the holidays with all my blogging gals.

December 2012: Newsmaker

Also in December, in a rather humbling moment, Apparel News named me a "Newsmaker of 2012" - yep. Pretty amazing.

December 2012: My Family

I was extremely fortunate to be able to head home to the motherland for the holidays and spend the first Christmas in six years with my family. We even managed to get us all in one place for the first time since Mr Style and I's wedding (the second one - so that's about 3 years!).

Such an amazing time, with many more pics to come - haven't I got a gorgeous family?!

So that was 2012. Bring it on 2013. I double dare you.

Kelsi x

 

Dedicated Notes: Why I'm the Worstest

So I'm well aware that I've been absent. In fact in this history of Dedicated (which is going on four years now), I believe this has been the worst month in terms of frequency. I am sorry. But I have had a reeeaaally good excuse.

About four months ago I started on one of the biggest contracts in the history of Stylesmith, which effectively amounted to, getting these lovely ladies (plus a few more that missed the photo opp)....

...onto this fabulous Rue La La sponsored bus....

...to road trip through the desert. Stopping off at a Ghost Town....

...for a sweaty but glamourous photo shoot....

...ate lunch (obviously we were all screwed)...

...And then got back on the bus and headed onwards to...

....Las Vegas!! For the MAGIC Tradeshows where....

...we learned how to ride the bus Vegas style...

...drank cheesy cocktails in cheesy stuck in the 80's (in a good way) bars (Peppermill Fireside Lounge)...

...bought out entire "off the grid/strip" Italian restaurants (at Chicago Joes, which happens to be my personal favourite Vegas eatery)...

 

..and accidentally ending up in party cabs....

It wasn't all fun and games (well actually it was) but the work was fun too...there were panels....

....networking sessions.....

...and millions of photo shoots!

All in all it was a fun and hugely successful week - you can see everything the bloggers got up to on the special blog we created 'Road to MAGIC' - you can all keep up with it as we'll be adding all the post show content, including our full photoshoots, to it - so be sure to bookmark it now :)

Well, thanks for hanging around in my absence - it was most appreciated and I promise - so much summer content is on it's way!!

Kelsi xx

Happy Father's Day Daddy.

Photos of Photos of my Dad (and Mum)

My Dad is pretty much the best Dad in the world. I realize lots of little girls think this way about their father, and lot's of them are right, experience is relative after all. But the amount of terrible father's out there, only cause our "best Dad in the world" to shine brighter.

My Dad is the "best Dad in the world" - not because he is in the biological sense (even though he is, to be clear) and not because he's perfect, he's not, who is,  but because, in every which way, he has always shown up for me (the exception being that one time he forgot to pick me up from piano - but it was all good - I liked playing with my teacher's pet chinchilla...hahah) - my Dad - is a father by choice.

This is made all the more apparent by his choice - a good few years before me - to become a father to my elder sister and brother (who were 11 and 9 when I was born) at the ripe old age of 30, when he started dating a beautiful single mother with two children - my wonderful Mum.

My Dad is a human being, over the years I've realized that, and of course their are flaws, but his humanity causes me to love him more. I believe that he is one of the kindest hearted, soft of spirit people out there and he invented Dad jokes. Which makes him awesome.

So on this Father's Day - I wanted to put it out there. In a pretty public way, and I don't tell you enough Dad; Thanks, and I love you.

Wish I was home for a Daddy cuddle.

Kelsi xx

Dedicated Notes: The Magazine

Click to see in full size!

Some of you may remember that last year I was named Fashion Editor of a new magazine called L.A Centric. Well, after slogging my guts out to produce some beautiful fashion pages in time for the November 2011 deadline, the publisher sat on them and ignored my emails.

He's since published the magazine, without my pages (it's not attractive and ad heavy - which I realize now was the entire purpose of his project) so I'm left with some very pretty fashion pages, that have no purpose. So I figured that I'd publish them here.

One of these days I'll make my own magazine - it's been a dream of mine that's been on the backburner for years with all the various projects I have going on, but one day it'll happen, and this project went a long way to proving that I could do it, given the time.

At this point, this is the third time I've been burned by middle aged men wanting to get into the fashion space because they think we're all rolling around in money...needless to say....lesson learned. Third time's a charm eh?

Kelsi x