Please vote for Lira Leirner to make Florence's stage outfit

"Florence + the Machine is a Brit Award-winning band with roots in indie rock and soul. Lead singer Florence Welch is known for her eclectic sense of style, often wearing outfits she finds in local second-hand shops."

So right up my street, then, I thought a few months ago. I don't remember exactly who pointed me towards it (which is bad, I'm so sorry) but I have been shown the link a few times by several different people since.

I submitted the clear Royal Mail Dress which got put through to the voting round! Have a look and vote for me!

Now I was made aware that the voting is open! So... As the reward is quite big I thought I'll share it with my lovely voters. If I win, I'll select one of you to receive part of the winning prize! To be entered please make sure to let me know you voted with a comment on the page. Let's do this!

PLEASE VOTE FOR ME!

Lira Leirner Pop-up shop in Covent Garden during London Fashion Week 2010

I've been telling some of you here and there but now it's confirmed. During London Fashion Week, Lira Leirner will be having a pop-up stall, if you will, as part of the Fashion Fete in Covent Garden where you will find old and new pieces in size ranging form 6 to 14 both menswear and womenswear as well as the usual Lira Leirner dresses. There will be an array of accessories, blouses, shorts and jackets - something for everybody, so make sure to pop by and have a look.

And now comes the most important incentive of all... EVERYTHING will be £100 or less going all the way to £20. This will be only at the stall, and not repeated. A one off sale that you should take advantage of before someone else snaps up the unique one off pieces. This will include some never before seen exclusive pieces that you will only be able to get during these two days of London Fashion Week.

While you're there, you can also have fun at the other stalls which are outlined in the official press release as follows!

Please spread the word, have a look at the Lira Leirner website to get you excited and I look forward to seeing you there!

As the buzz of London Fashion Week takes over the capital, Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th September (11am-6pm) will see Covent Garden, home of Fashion Fringe, play host to the tongue-in-cheek fashion extravaganza that is Fashion Fête.

Back by popular demand, Fashion Fête sashays back into town with an entourage of traditional village fête activities, each with a jaunty fashion edge. 2010 Fashion Fête is all about modern-retro with an 80’s twist and set to be bolder, brighter and even more stylish than 2009.

Last year’s favourites will make a reappearance including Vintage Patisserie’s tea party, Hunter welly wanging, fashion hook-a-duck and the much-loved London Fashion Woof, but this year there’s the chance for all our furry friends to get involved in the fashion antics and strut their stuff on the ‘dog walk’. If you’ve got a cool cat or a fashionable ferret bring them along to work it at Fashion Fête.

These Fashion Fête classics will be joined by a flock of wacky new games and fashion kiosks including uber-cool London jeweller ‘Tatty Devine’, celeb favourite, skincare specialist Erno Laszlo and vintage fashion leader, Rokit spanning the two-day style spectacular. You’ll have a chance to get a mini make-over from Covent Garden favourite Charles H Fox and have your own faux paparazzi shot taken.

For the first time ever, Covent Garden will also be scouting for pet models with cutting-edge animal accessories brand PetLondon, searching for the face of their next modelling campaign.

So get ready to throw your glad rags on and strut down to Covent Garden – the only place to see and be seen this London Fashion Week!

Fashion-esque fête fun will include:

London Fashion Woof! Designer “dog-walk” with PetLondon
Stylish pups from far-and-wide are invited to compete in a doggy fashion contest. Categories include: ‘Best Outfit’, ‘Best Walk’, ‘Best Groomed’ and ‘Best in Show’. For the first time ever we’re opening the invitation to more of our furry friends, so if you’ve got a cool cat or a fashionable ferret bring them along to work it on the ‘dog walk’. Model scouts from cutting edge animal accessories brand PetLondon will be on the look-out for the new face of the animal kingdom – no mutts need apply!

Faux Paparazzi Photoshoot
Turn heads with a model look as you get made-over by top make-up artists from Charles H Fox and hair stylists from a top Covent Garden salon then strut like Kate Moss in front of the paparazzi and a screaming fans back-drop and get your star moment captured in a photo to take home.

Tatty Devine
Give your style the individual touch and get creative with a jewellery making class by most desired jewellers Tatty Devine – colour your own charms and use pretty ribbons to make beautiful personalised pendants for an instant style update.

Lira Leirner
Drawing your dream fashion piece and letting your creativity free by engaging with the process of design making with fashion blogger Lira Leirner, who will be selling her own original clothing designs and advising on how to get started in the fashion industry.

Tea, Cakes and Tiaras (sort of) with Vintage Patisserie
True glamour is timeless, so Vintage Patisserie will again be adding a touch of class with their 20s inspired look, complete with dancing tea ladies. Enjoy a delicious cuppa in beautiful vintage crockery along with a scrumptious cupcake on the tea lawn - or get yourself a stunning hand-made 1920s head band from the stall.

Fashion Week Front Row Fan Booth
This magic photobooth gives an instant re-touched look as the soft lighting and wind machine ensure your photo is good enough for the Vogue cover! The booth comes equipped with fun face masks, so you can don the looks of Karl Lagerfeld, Anna Wintour and Naomi Campbell and create your own fun Fashion Week front row picture.

Hunter Welly Wanging
See how far you can wang your wellies; only Hunter will do. The furthest welly wanged wins a pair of Hunter Boots - but watch out, the course is dotted with festival chic models in Hunter wellies – make sure you don’t hit them or you’ll fail the course!

Fancy Dress-Up Boxes
Fancy dress-up boxes are supplied by theatrical costumiers Costume Boutique and hip vintage clothing experts Rokit so you can try out some new looks and make sure you look the part. If you like what you see, stroll over to the Rokit stall where you can also buy their retro gear.

Hook a Fashion Duck
Take a rod, chose your target, keep a firm hand, hook-a-duck! Cross your fingers that your duck has a fashion prize attached.

Hand, Arm and Eye Massages
When carrying all those bags gets too much, stop off for a pamper session and enjoy a luxurious massage from the famous Doctor skincare brand Erno Laszlo. Find out about the famous 30 splashes technique and how to get a free 30 minute facial at the global institute (here in Covent Garden).

Perfume sampling
Join in L'Artisan’s Blindfold Fragrance Fun and test your fragrance skills. Can you tell us what the smell is? What the taste is? What does this feel like? Blindfolded, can you identify all the lovely smells? Discover fragrance like no other perfumery.

The Lush Airstream
The Lush vintage airstream is rolling in to join the fiesta and will be selling a specially selected range of pampering products for the fashionista and offering fete-goers indulgent hand massages. The Lush team will also be selling a selection of their stunning vintage and own design scarves and offering scarf tying master classes to make sure you rock the look. Come along and invent your own scarf style and you could be chosen to win a fantastic Lush pamper pack prize.

Pearl and Ivy
Because all style gurus know, accessorising is key... Make sure you stand out from the crowd this season and pick up beautiful hand-made, original vintage-inspired hair accessories from London designers Pearl and Ivy.

Create Boutique
Fancy becoming the envy of all your friends with this season’s must have footwear accessory? Then come down and join a creative workshop with the Create Boutique specialists and learn to make your own cute 80s-inspired bows to adorn your pretty pumps.

Fashion Piñata
The most legal fun you can have with a bat in public! Break open the Fashion Fête ostentatious 80s fashion Piñata and get showered with fabulous fashion prizes.

Chalkyvan
Unleash your creativity at the innovative Chalkyvan, a customised vintage VW campervan whose blank panels are ready and waiting for Londoners to make their mark on the Piazza with any passing design, style or fashion-related comments and observations.

Not only this, there will be nail painting, funky stalls where you can buy everything from earrings and mojitos to doggy couture, from brands including vintage jeweller Maria Zureta and lots of prizes to be won, as well as much, much more.

Bev Churchill, Brand Director of Covent Garden London, comments, “September in London is all about fashion and we couldn’t let that pass at Covent Garden without a celebration, especially as London Fashion Week is now just down the road. We are really excited to be working with some fantastic partners from PetLondon, Hunter wellies and Tatty Devine, who will help make 2010 Fashion Fête a fun fashion experience that everyone can enjoy and get involved in.”

Harvey Nichols Hosts a “Classy” Dinner

Last week Lucy Yeomans and Sophia Neophitou hosted a private dinner at Harvey Nichols in celebration of the newest courtesy book to join the ranks of historically and culturally poignant behavioral books – “Classy – Exceptional Advice for the Extremely Modern Lady” by Derek Blasberg. With his impressive fashion based background ranging from publishing for Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, W, V Magazine, Interview, The Sunday Times and Conde Nast’s Style.com and a collection of a fashionistas with a wide fan base, this book is setting itself out to be a must-read even if it is to chuckle at silly quotes or more innocently, to read up a few stories of rags to riches to red carpet (quite literally) and dream that “modern” American Dream.

Burping may bring you glory according to Jonathan Swift’s “Tale of a Tub”‘s Aeolists (if one would like to consider themselves as a fool reader), and the oldest English courtesy book dating back to the 13th century, the “Book of the Civilized Man” by Daniel of Beccles outlines that “If you wish to belch, remember to look up to the ceiling.” So burping can’t be quite wrong, right? Right? Uh…

I’m sure we can come to agree that despite the amusement and historical factor of these books, when it comes to such social constitutions as fleeting as social manners, it is quite pivotal to have a regular update every few centuries or so (at the least). In many cases, they will help future generations understand not only the details of etiquette, but also the implications such etiquette have about the culture and understanding of what was deemed higher society in general.

With his firm belief that “At the end of the day, even the unclassiest girls can become classy” one does wonder whether there has been an adjustment to the understanding of the word and meaning “classy”. Yes, we saw that Lindsay Lohan can look ladylike on the cover of Vanity Fair before her stint in jail, that whichever childhood or background you come from, you can “get to the top” where you’ll be perfectified by a horde of stylists, make-up artists and hairdressers. Does that mean class? Perhaps not, but for the sake of a fashion based book with the assumption that looking classy (plus having your manners roughly in check) means you are classy, let’s say yes. Derek Blasberg provides a handbook with quotes and secrets from “all the socialites”, and may be confusing fame with class, but maybe this is the new definition of the word or the new understanding of what is deemed high class today.

However, pulling in the extremest examples that overshadow all the hard working and well mannered people working in fashion isn’t entirely fair. Take Anna Wintour for example. Do you think she should have a peak into what this book promises to be? Do you think she really needs to? Would you classify her sharp but real tongue to be “unclassy” or does it suddenly not matter because of her position? “Classy” sounds to be a very fun book to read where, I am sure, the structure, hierarchies and real rules of today’s fashion culture will come across if the words aren’t taken by their literal meaning and am even more certain, will provide a an actual insight to this mad world we call the fashion industry.

Apart from the fact that modernity is strictly speaking a historical time frame that was taking place around the time of the Industrial Revolution and that the late 20th was, technically speaking, post-modernity, one must go with the given lingo even if I do think that the “Extremely Modern Lady” Derek Basberg is referring to might actually be the the “Extremely Post – Modern Lady” since the extremely modern lady is actually one from the last century as, one could argue, is the concept of the “American Dream”, which underlies the rags to riches storyline. But of course, this doesn’t sound as good, so I’m going to put aside such technicalities for now and celebrate the star studded launch, most namely Alexa Chung in that beautiful leather skirt outfit (see how quickly I abandon all reason and argumentative tendencies just to celebrate fashion?).

From left to right: Alexa Chung; Roland Mouret; Alexa Chung; Derek Blasberg; Richard Nicoll; Derek Blasberg

Back to the point, here are the nitty gritty detail of where you may purchase the discussed book: The US No. 1 Bestseller ‘CLASSY’ by Derek Blasberg is exclusively available at Harvey Nichols for £9.99

(This article was published on LDNfashion.net)