ELLE Fashion Journey – All about Denim Drift

Apart from countless colours in the world, there is always a need for a new one. International colour trends are changing as per the choices of people. Hundreds of colour based researches are conducted every year by different brands to cater the needs of their customers but there is always a call for one special colour for the completeness be it food, fashion or interior.
In order to announce colour of the year and highlight colour needs, the fashion world experienced the one very moment when Elle Fashion Journey 2016 provided a platform to the young and experienced designers to showcase their talent in Vietnam.
The journey was an achievement of Vietnamese fashion designers in collaboration with AkzoNobel. The theme of the collection revolves around Denim Drift which is chosen to be the colour of the year 2017.
The colour of “Denim Drift” is expected to see everywhere in 2017 (also known as Smoke Grey). Fitting into all life and interior styles, ‘Denim Drift’ is the perfect choice for reflecting people’s new perception for 2017 and is the mandatory colour for the year ahead. Denim Drift is a versatile grey-blue and is used perfectly capturing the mood of the moment and embodying our lives.
At the Elle Fashion Journey 2016, Designer Dieu Anh opened the show with her collection on the first night inspired by the Denim Drift. Dieu Anh is an old player in the Vietnamese Fashion industry. Her designs and cuts are unique and awe inspiring. The way she played with colours is a depiction of her talent and artistic qualities, and thus her brand is fairly picky to wear. Every creation of Designer Dieu Anh is breathtaking from the indigo textile, eco-friendly bamboo denim material to the timeless design.
The finale was closed with the spectacular collection of Designer Giao Linh on the newcomer in Vietnam fashion industry. Her off the rack designs are simple but stylish and luxurious. She has given a new vision to the Vietnamese upcoming Fashion trends through the depiction of the contemporary spirit of European fashion to the traditional pattern of the Orient in the collection.Read more at:formal dresses melbourne | formal dresses adelaide

Why Jackie Kennedy’s wedding dress designer was fashion’s ‘best kept secret’

In 1953, when Ann Lowe received a commission to create a wedding gown for society swan Jacqueline Bouvier, she was thrilled. Lowe, an African-American designer who was a favorite of the society set, had been hired to dress the woman of the hour, the entire bridal party and Jackie’s mother. But 10 days before Jackie and Sen. John F. Kennedy were to say “I do,” a water pipe broke and flooded Lowe’s Madison Avenue studio, destroying 10 of the 15 frocks, including the bride’s elaborate dress, which had taken two months to make.
In between her tears, Lowe, then 55, ordered more ivory French taffeta and candy-pink silk faille, and corralled her seamstresses to work all day. Jackie’s dress, with its classic portrait neckline and bouffant skirt embellished with wax flowers, went on to become one of the most iconic wedding gowns in history, but, decades later, Lowe would die broke and unknown at age 82.
Now, the country’s first black high-fashion designer is finally getting her due. Three Lowe gowns are on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s new National Museum of African American History & Culture in Washington, DC. On Dec. 6, the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan will display several Ann Lowe gowns in an exhibition on black fashion. And there are two children’s books about the designer in the pipeline.
“She was exceptional; her work really moves you,” says Smithsonian curator Elaine Nichols.
Lowe was born in Clayton, Ala., in 1898. Her grandmother was an enslaved dressmaker who stitched frocks for her white owners and opened her own business after the Civil War. Little Ann learned to sew from both her grandmother and her mother. Even at age 6 it was clear that she was quite talented.
“She would gather the scraps from her mother’s workroom and go to the garden and create these beautiful fabric flowers,” says Elizabeth Way, a curatorial assistant at the Museum at FIT, which has three Lowe dresses in its collection.
When she was 16, Lowe took over the family business after her mother died and left an unfinished order of gowns for the governor’s wife that needed to be finished. Around this time, Lowe also married an older man named Lee Cohen and gave birth to a son, Arthur, but the union was short-lived. About a year into the marriage, the wife of a Tampa business tycoon invited her to come to Florida and create dresses for her and her daughters. Lowe jumped at the opportunity.
“It was a chance to make all the lovely gowns I’d always dreamed of,” Lowe told the Saturday Evening Post in 1964. “I picked up my baby and got on that Tampa train.” Cohen, who disapproved of her ambition, sent her divorce papers.
Lowe, however, wanted to be more than a dressmaker. In 1917, at the age of 18, she took a sabbatical from her job in Tampa to enroll in a couture course in New York City. When she arrived, the head of the school was aghast that he had admitted a black woman, and he tried to turn her away. Her white classmates refused to sit in the same room as her, but she plugged away and graduated early.
Ten years later, Lowe moved to New York for good with $20,000 she had saved working in Florida and settled in Harlem with her son. She started taking jobs as an in-house seamstress at department stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and for made-to-measure clothiers like Hattie Carnegie. It didn’t take long for word of this young, talented artist to spread.
Through the 1940s to the end of the ’60s, Lowe was known as society’s “best-kept secret,” designing outfits for famous socialites like the Rockefellers and du Ponts and Hollywood stars like Olivia de Havilland. When Christian Dior first beheld her handiwork, he exclaimed, with probably a bit of envy, “Who made this gown?”
“She had excellent technique,” says costume historian Margaret Powell, who is working on one of the kids’ books about Lowe. “Even the insides [of her dresses] are beautifully finished . . . Her clients realized that they could get the same quality as Dior at a much lower price.”
In 1950, two customers persuaded her to open her own salon, and her white business partners helped her snag a space on tony Madison Avenue. “It was difficult for a black woman at that time,” says Powell.
Unfortunately, Lowe’s business sense did not match her design acumen. She charged clients barely enough to break even, and her commission for the Kennedy wedding nearly bankrupted her.
“She bought more fabric, hired people overtime and just swallowed all the lost money [after the accident],” says author Deborah Blumenthal, who is writing another children’s book about Lowe.
Plus, Lowe was already unknowingly giving the family a bargain, charging just $500 for Jackie’s ensemble, compared with the $1,500 the dress likely would have cost from a competitor. She ended up incurring a loss of $2,200. “She never told Jackie or her family . . . It’s just heartbreaking,” Blumenthal says.
Worse, when Lowe took an overnight train to Newport, RI, to hand-deliver the dresses herself, the guards at the wedding venue told her she had to use the service door because of the color of her skin.
“She said, ‘If I have to use the backdoor, they’re not going to have the gowns!’ ” says Blumenthal. “They let her in.”
For a period of time in the 1950s, her son, Arthur, managed her books, and he helped rein in his mother’s lavish spending and keep the company afloat. But in 1958, he was killed in an auto accident, and she was frequently broke once again.
In 1962, Lowe was in a bad spot. She had closed her salon due to outstanding costs, taken a job as an in-house dressmaker at Saks, quit that, lost her eye to glaucoma — an operation she couldn’t afford and which the doctor provided gratis — and owed $12,800 in back taxes. But then she got a call from the IRS saying an “anonymous friend” had taken care of her costs. Lowe told both the Saturday Evening Post and Ebony that she believed it was Jackie, who Lowe had remained close with.
“[She] was so sweet,” Lowe told the Saturday Evening Post in 1964. “She would talk with me about anything.”
That generous gift allowed Lowe to reopen her business, and it was soon bustling. In a typical six-month period she and her three to five pattern-cutters and seamstresses would complete 35 debutante gowns and nine wedding dresses. But she was still bleeding money, and losing her eyesight, to boot. “I’ve had to work by feel,” she told the Saturday Evening Post. “But people tell me I’ve done better feeling than others do seeing.”
Around this time, Ann Bellah Copeland commissioned Lowe to create a dress for her wedding to Gerret van Sweringen Copeland, the son of Lammot du Pont Copeland.
“Her assistants hovered around her to be certain that she got it all right,” Copeland, now in her 70s, wrote in an e-mail to The Post. “No one made dresses as beautifully.”
Lowe retired in 1969, at age 71, and moved to Queens to be with her so-called “adopted daughter” Ruth Alexander — who had helped Lowe at her shop for years.
“She lived a very quiet, serious life. But everyone says that she was very sweet, very patient. Around her family she could be a funny person. And she was very determined,” says Powell. “She showed that an African-American could be a major fashion designer. She made it to that highest level. She’s an inspiration.”Read more at:formal dresses | bridesmaid dresses

Why the Queen was told not to marry Prince Philip

That’s according to biographer A.N. Wilson who told a crowd at the Cheltenham Literary Festival that the Queen was warned Philip was “the wrong person”.
“When she made it quite clear from the age of about 14 that she was in love with Prince Philip, who was a beautiful German Prince with blond hair, all the courtiers said he was entirely the wrong person to choose,” he said, according to The Telegraph.
“They said it for lots of reasons, but the fact is he was wrong. The Queen is very reserved, diligent person. He isn’t. He was a naval officer and he was also quite funny.”
The couple were married in 1947 when Elizabeth II was just 21 years old and she ascended to the throne five years later after the death of her father, King George VI.
The biographer described Prince Philip’s jokes as “extremely funny” and gave an example by revealing what he said to the Queen right after her coronation.
He allegedly said, “where did you get that hat?”
“The fact that he makes all these so-called gaffes, well I don’t think they are gaffes,” Wilson said.
“They are the kind of jokes a naval officer of a certain age might make. I think [they are] made rather wonderfully.”
Here are some classic lines that Prince Philip has uttered in the past:
In 1967 Prince Philip was asked if he’d like to visit the Soviet Union. He replied with, “I would like to go to Russia very much, although the bastards murdered half my family.”
In 1981 during the recession he said: “Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed”.
In 1986 he told some British exchange students living in China: “If you stay here much longer you’ll all be slitty-eyed.”
In 1999 he told a group of kids from the British Deaf Association who were standing next to a Caribbean steel band: “If you’re near that music it’s no wonder you’re deaf”.
In 2009 he told a young male fashion designer: “You didn’t design your beard too well, did you? You really must try better with your beard.”

When he met the President of Nigeria, who was dressed in traditional robes, Prince Philip said: “You look like you’re ready for bed.”Read more at:formal dresses

Can we outface ageing?

(Photo:formal dresses 2014) YOUTH may be wasted on the young, but it’s the holy grail for the ageing affluent. No longer willing to undergo an invasive nip-and-tuck, informed women are looking to the latest developments in science, which take an inside-out approach to ageing.
There’s a booming market in sophisticated anti-ageing procedures and products. Last year, the global market was worth €193bn. By 2018, that’s scheduled to be €280bn.
The research is being driven by some of the best scientific and business brains.
Dr David Sinclair, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, swallows a daily anti-ageing capsule that he developed during his research on mice.
The capsule contains a naturally occurring molecule, called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, or NAD, which reduces in the body as we age, thereby making our cells less efficient.
The molecule reduces inflammation and may correct metabolic defects.
Dr Sinclair is increasing his body’s stores of this dynamic substance — and he is willing to wait and see what the result will be.
“I don’t know if they’re working,” says 45-year-old Dr Sinclair. “I’m too young to know yet. Another 20 years and I will know,” he says.
However, there have been human trials already and the results are promising. Research is ongoing into “newer, better molecules now,” he says.
He is confident about the financial success of an age-defying drug.
“Fortune magazine estimated in 2006 the drug would be worth $40bn,” he says.
Science is increasingly confident that the health hardships of ageing can be avoided.
As Sinclair said in a recent article in the prestigious Scientific American journal: “You can learn a lot about the state of a used car just from its mileage and model year. The wear-and-tear of heavy driving, and the passage of time, will have taken an inevitable toll.
“The same appears to be true of ageing in people, but the analogy is flawed, because of a crucial difference between inanimate machines and living creatures: deterioration is not inexorable in biological systems, which can respond to their environments and use their own energy to defend and repair themselves.”
Researchers have found a family of genes that have the power to keep the body’s natural defence and repair activities going strong regardless of age.
These represent the opposite of ageing genes.
“We began investigating this idea nearly 15 years ago,” Dr Sinclair says.
Mice were given NAD. By increasing the amount in just one week of treatment, two-year-old mice tissue resembled that of six-month-old mice.
In human years, that’s akin to a 60-year-old’s cells resembling those of a 20-year-old.
So it’s no surprise that for those in the know and with the money, old-style cosmetic enhancements, such as facelifts, are losing their attraction in a market obsessed by cutting-edge research and scientific breakthroughs in everything from diet to neuroscience.
Soon, some people may be able to grow a new set of kidneys, because, says Sinclair, coming down the track is “the ability to change your genes permanently and to grow replacement organs in the dish.”
By the end of this century, he says, “people could live to 150.”
His research, however, is about extending “health-span” not “life-span.” Dr Sinclair is by no means alone.
It’s been less than two years since Google launched its mission to extend the human lifespan, with research carried out by scientists at the California Life Company, or Calico.
They harnessed sophisticated technologies to delay ageing and eliminate diseases such as Alzheimer’s and cancer. A $1.5bn, life-extension research centre in San Francisco is planned.
Larry Ellison, the CEO of tech company Oracle, and one of the world’s richest men, is pumping money into the Ellison Medical Foundation, an anti-ageing biomedical research centre. Peter Thiel, another hugely wealthy businessman — he’s a co-founder of PayPal and a Facebook board member — supports SENS, a research body that specialises in rejuvenation research.
SENS is run by Aubrey de Grey, who says that restoring the molecular and cellular structure of the body to that of a young adult will reverse ageing and allow people to avoid the ill-health that so often accompanies old age.
New, more advanced thinking is also ringing the changes in the fitness industry — there’s a growing belief that weights should be lighter and repetitions more frequent.
The formerly popular sports of marathon running and triathlons are now losing favour – they can leave you haggard, and according to actress Sandra Bullock’s personal trainer Dalton Wong, too much endurance work can stress the skin.
Wong recommends about 45 minutes of aerobic activity a few times a week, once you hit your 40s. More than that may raise the levels of the stress hormone coritoson, and could exacerbate the ageing process.
Scientists at McMaster University in Canada recently reported that up to half an hour of jogging, cycling or fast walking three times a week to boost skin plumpness in a group of volunteers aged 65 and older.
After three months, the complexion of the exercisers were closer to what the scientists said they’d expect in in healthy people aged 20 to 40.
“At a world level, people have become less comfortable with mortality,” says Dr Patrick Magovern, who was clinical instructor at the University of California in Los Angeles.
People want to make the best of what they have, says Dublin-based Dr Magovern, who has trained in nutritional medicine and bio-identical or natural hormone treatments.
However, says Dr Magovern, the stream of patients who arrive at his practice are not seeking the secret of an eternal, Hollywood-style youthfulness, but solutions to real, age-related problems, such as the decline of testosterone in men and menopausal problems in women.
“In Ireland, we’re very problem-oriented. A lot of women would be embarrassed about anything to do with enhancing their looks,” he says.
Dr Magovern uses a combination of bio-identical hormone and advanced nutritional treatments, which can help with the problems but, he says, they also have some desirable side-effects.
So while treatment with the hormone oestrogen helps with ageing bones — it can improve density — it can also plump up the skin, and smooth out wrinkles, by thickening the subcutaneous fat.
Oestrogen treatment also increases the level of serotonin in the brain, thus improving mood and acetycholine levels, which boost memory.
“So it helps with bone health, memory, skin and happiness, alongside solving menopausal problems.
“The patients come in for the treatment, but they like the side-effects,” he says, adding that nutrition is extremely important.
“I check things like stomach acids, gut and digestive system and the person’s ability to absorb essential minerals and vitamins.”
Male patients present with a form of depression, he says: “You will see unrecognised, gross testosterone deficiency in them. This can present as a depressive illness and be diagnosed as depression, whereas what they need is the relevant hormone. When they get it, some people find it can really change things.”
It’s certainly not cheap — but it’s not beyond the bounds of affordability either — for bio-identical Hormone Therapy, Magovern charges €250 for a first consultation, while subsequent standard consultations are €120.
In London, Dr Marion Gluck, author of It Must Be my Hommones, also believes that replenishing the body’s hormones is the key to health and anti-ageing.
“Ageing accelerates after menopause, so having the hormones means you maintain your health and your quality of life. The health benefits mean you feel well — you won’t have the aching bones, the headaches, the hot flushes,” she says.
The treatment also rolls back the years.
“It’s about positive side-effects,” says Dr Gluck, adding that what she does is ‘top-up’ hormones that the body previously provided.
“My patients continually say their skin is better, their sleep is better, their moods improve, their sex life is better.”
Then there’s the rejuvenation effect.
“Women are definitely worried about the appearance — they feel everything is starting to sag, that they are losing their skin tone and that they suddenly become invisible.
“They can get this ‘crepey’ look to their skin and they welcome the benefits of the hormonal therapy that we provide.”
But given the more far-out research currently being carried out internationally, would we, if we could, really opt to live to 150 or older?
“Members of my family would,” says Dr Sinclair.
“It’s a terrible loss when anyone, with all their gathered wisdom and energy, withers and dies.”
True, but Dr Labros Chatzis, a plastic surgeon with 21 years’ experience, fears that our culture’s obsession with youth not only feeds our insecurity about ourselves, but exerts a downward pressure:
“People cannot accept that ageing is a normal process. We think we can buy everything these days, so we think we can buy youth, as well.
“It’s no longer good enough to look 58 if you are 58. You have to look younger.
“The big companies and the marketplace feed our insecurity. The celebrity culture is part of it — people feel they have to follow every Tom Dick and Harry who is any kind of an A, B or C-list celebrity.
“Consumerism is focused on youth, beauty, wealth and spending. There’s more pressure, and there’s a need to look younger,” says Dr Chatzis, who is based at Clane General Hospital, in Kildare.
In today’s workplace, he says, if you’re middle-aged and you don’t look your best, you may not have the same chance at getting a promotion or even a job.
“There’s a big market for it, there’s a huge amount of money being spent on research and marketing, not only to promote new products, but to promote the need for these new products.”
Though he says nobody can hide their age, he has this advice for those who want to look their best:
“Wear proper skin block. Don’t smoke. Enjoy a good, healthy diet, and if you’re lucky enough to have good genes you will look better than your biological age.
“It’s your personality that makes you a success, not the number of wrinkles on your face.”
Case study: Bio-identical hormone treatment
Bio-identical hormone therapy has transformed the life of Anna* a 55-year-old financier.
After discovering some years ago that she was not only going through the menopause, but had osteoporosis to boot, she began to research the bone condition.
“I discovered that the normal procedure is to give a medication which prevents further natural deterioration of the bone but doesn’t encourage the growth of new bone.
“I was told the medication would keep things stable for about five years but that after that there was not much hope.
“I learned a bit about bio-identical hormone replacement and how it could improve bone health.”
In June 2013 she travelled to see Dr Magovern at his clinic in Dublin – a four-hour round trip from where she lives – in the hope that bio-identical hormone therapy might improve her condition.
“He put me on a course of bio-identical hormones and also tested my digestive system to see if I was absorbing the vitamins and minerals in my food properly.
“I wasn’t, so I started taking a course of digestive enzymes to improve the flora in my gut.
“I feel much better now. It has totally changed my life for the better.
“I had lost interest in sex, but now my sex has life improved massively.”
In fact she says, her sex life had improved within weeks of beginning the treatments.
“I’ve lost weight. I’ve gone down a dress size. My energy levels have increased. My memory has improved and I felt so much better overall that it’s unbelievable.
“I feel like I am getting my life back. I feel much more enthusiastic about life and I would recommend bio identical hormone treatment to everybody.”
For a year she made the lengthy trip every three months, but now she attends the clinic on a twice-yearly basis.
“I feel it’s marvellous and I prioritise it over anything else.”

Her partner has noticed the difference in her, she says, and is “thinking about going to [the clinic] to see if there is anything it could do for him.”Read more at:formal dresses sydney

Al Bustan Palace hotel offers perfect settings for a dream wedding in Oman

(Photo:princess formal dresses) Set against a majestic backdrop of the rugged Al Hajjar Mountains and the glittering azure waters of the Sea of Oman, Al Bustan Palace, a Ritz-Carlton Hotel, provides the perfect setting for a dream wedding.
The palatial resort's distinctive wedding venues include the largest ballroom in the Sultanate. Located in a separate wing of the hotel, this elegant 1,204-square-meter space features an elaborate cut-crystal chandelier and a décor of muted gold and blues adding calm and splendor to the idyllic surroundings, says a press release.
Omani wedding customs and traditions are very rich in culture and heritage. A wedding, in particular a traditional one, takes a lot of preparation, from the proposal, dowry or maher, and henna party to mulkah (marriage ceremony) and the wedding reception.
With this in mind, a dedicated wedding expert is on hand to take care of every detail from initial menu tasting and protocol to guests' accommodation, in order to make the experience as joyous and memorable as possible for the bride.
On the day of the wedding, the bride will have full access to the Bridal Suite. Designed for privacy and comfort, this ultra-luxurious suite features a spacious dressing area, separate make-up room, and a comfortable sitting area where friends and family members can join in for the 'preparation' rituals.

Wedding packages at Al Bustan Palace include luxurious accommodations with a complimentary bottle of non-alcoholic date champagne served in crystal flutes, special room rates for wedding guests, 3-tier wedding cake, and more. The packages can also be customised to suit the bride's personal taste.Read more at:red formal dresses

Beauty really has no age limit, says Maureen Martin

(Photo:white formal dresses) Maureen Martin, who is in her 60s, says older women in Northern Ireland are looking better than ever. Here, she reveals the secrets of the modern style icons who prove that...
Older women in Northern Ireland could teach their counterparts in London a thing or two about how to look good, according to local fashion guru Maureen Martin. There can be few people better qualified to give an informed opinion on our sense of style than the lovely Maureen who has been at the forefront of local fashion for more than four decades.
The first ever winner of the Belfast Telegraph Woman of the Year in Fashion at our inaugural awards in 2007, the very elegant Belfast grandmother is a respected pioneer of the local fashion scene.
After modelling as a teen, Maureen set up what became Northern Ireland's biggest model agency, Stages, with Brian Massey back in the 1970s.
Despite the turbulence of the time, the province had a thriving fashion scene, with regular weekly catwalk shows, with Maureen and Brian styling and choreographing for all the big names. Today she is as busy as ever organising top style events across Ireland through her successful agency, Maureen Martin Models.
She has worked around the world and was particularly in demand in London, where she was a regular on top TV programme The Clothes Show and worked with icons like the late Alexander McQueen, who died in 2010.
She has an individual sense of style, that has always been contemporary but with her own edgy twist, and which she herself lightheartedly describes as "a bit off the rails".
With her classic ash-blonde shoulder-length hair, smooth complexion and vibrant dress sense she is a superb icon for women of a certain age.
"With so many good skin products now and advances in the beauty industry older women are looking after themselves more and are looking better than ever," she says.
"I think women are more liberated now in the sense that they don't just grow old and expect to sit at home looking after their grandchildren, that's all changed and it's nice to see.
"I would travel to London quite a bit with work and to attend events and older women in Northern Ireland are right up there when it comes to fashion.
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"In fact, we are far better dressed than women of the same age in the capital. We really do make an effort here."
When choosing her own wardrobe, Maureen loves mixing high street with designer labels and an advantage of the travel which comes with her job is being able to pick up unusual pieces which suit her individual sense of style.
Designer love
She loves the fashion in Cos in Dublin and her favourite designers include Alexander McQueen, Elie Saab and Simone Rocha, John Rocha's daughter.
"Simone Rocha is a great girl and has her head screwed on in that her designs can be worn by women of all ages," says Maureen. "She is very talented, just like her dad."
Maureen says her love of clothes was instilled in her as a child by her late mum Ellen, who was a seamstress.
She grew up as an only child in Belfast, with a love of music, clothes and interior design. Indeed, she loved interiors so much she qualified as an interior designer and indulges this passion with private commissions alongside running her model agency.
"Mum made most of my clothes," she recalls. "She made these lovely net dresses, like princess dresses, and she really did her best. I had lovely clothes which were different from what everyone else had. That gave me an early love for fashion.
"I also loved music and interiors so I was probably always destined to do something arty."
Maureen was a pupil at Methodist College, Belfast, and a talented piano player in her teens. She had considered becoming a music teacher but fate intervened when she was 16 and a local hairdresser asked if she would model for him. This led to her being photographed by one of the world's biggest fashion and portrait photographers.
"I always had great hair," says Maureen. "My hairdresser asked me to model for competitions, and as he was taking part in international competitions that gave me the opportunity to be involved in shoots in London, where I was photographed by a young David Bailey.
"I was too young to understand at the time what it meant and it was only later I realised who he was and how important it was to have been photographed by him."
She married her husband Robin, now a retired civil servant, when she was just 18 and together they have three girls, Karen, Tanya and Suzan, and seven grandchildren. Settling into married life she put her career on hold, returning to modelling in her late 20s when she joined the Stella Goddard School of Modelling. She remembers the training in catwalk deportment and photographic modelling as having been "very thorough" but it paid off as she soon became one of Northern Ireland's top models.
In the 1970s she teamed up with Brian Massey and together they launched Stages.
"We were doing all the big shows - the Ideal Home exhibition, the Smirnoff Fashion Awards, we worked for Fruit of the Loom and Marks & Spencer and were regulars on the BBC Clothes Show. The fashion scene in Northern Ireland in the 1970s was much bigger than it is now. We were doing two to three shows a week back then and we were all over the place, it was very vibrant. I did all the stage styling and Brian did the choreography."
When Brian decided to make a permanent move to London in the 1990s, Stages closed down and Maureen opened her own agency, which has been going strong ever since. She represents models not just locally but in Dublin, the rest of the UK and internationally. Her heart today, however, is in encouraging young fashion design talent in Northern Ireland. She organises competitions for them and using her contacts in the industry brings top international fashion designers to Northern Ireland for lectures.
A perfect fit for this passion was a new partnership some years ago with internationally-renowned local pianist Barry Douglas to run fashion shows for graduate designers at the annual Clandeboye Music Festival in Bangor.
Clandeboye Music Festival
"Clandeboye has been amazing," she says. "We work with all the young designer graduates from the University of Ulster and Belfast Met; it's a great thing for the young people because the young musicians who Barry mentors get to meet the young fashion designers. They are a great support to each other.
"I think young designers need a lot of encouragement and I would have brought designers like Alexander McQueen - who were once young designers themselves - over for lectures to show the young people what can happen if you are dedicated to what you do."
Maureen's agency is also kept busy with the Wedding Journal International fashion shows across Ireland where she works as backstage director, managing and supplying the team as well as styling the shows. She has just completed the wedding show in Dublin and is working on this week's big event in Belfast.
She has many career highlights which include working alongside the likes of Alexander McQueen, Isabella Blow and Roland Mouret to name but a few, and also cites winning the Belfast Telegraph Woman of the Year Award in Fashion as one of her most special moments.
Fittingly, this year Maureen is delighted to be organising the fashion show at our annual awards ceremony in the Ramada Hotel.
"It was brilliant to win the award, and especially at the very first event," she says. "I had no idea I had even been nominated and it was a great honour. I really appreciated the stories of the other women in the room and, compared to what some of them had achieved, I felt so humbled to be picking up an award. It's wonderful how well established the Belfast Telegraph Woman of the Year Awards has become and good to see it is one of Northern Ireland's major award events. I think it is great for all the local women nominated to have the outstanding work they do recognised.
"I went to the second awards night but haven't been able to go back so I'm really looking forward to being part of it this year again.
"I'm delighted to be approached to do the fashion show and I'm looking forward to producing a very exciting event with a wonderful selection of outfits from The Outlet, Banbridge, which sponsors the awards. It's right up my street and it will be lovely to be part of it again, it's a very special night out."
While she has given many young models a start over the years, Maureen says the industry has changed since she first took to the catwalk as a young woman more than 30 years ago. Despite the fact that back then models could be any height, but now need to tower at five feet eight inches for women and six feet for men, Maureen feels the biggest change is in attitudes.
"I think training back when I started was more professional," she says. "We respected our agent because if we didn't go by the rules then we didn't get the jobs. I find young people now have a different attitude and it's hard to gain the same respect which we had for our employers; to be honest, I find this hard to tolerate at times."

She adds: "It's almost as if for some of them it's like they feel they are doing us a favour!"Read more at:black formal dresses

What Men’s Fashion Shows Mean for the Average Guy

(Photo:unique formal dresses) THERE’S NO BUSINESS like show business—certainly in the men’s fashion industry, which is putting on some 140 fashion shows across London, Florence, Milan and Paris this month. To spectators outside the fashion box—the male consumers who keep menswear in business—the personal relevance of this seasonal conveyor belt of collections can seem minimal. Yet, for the average, mildly style-curious man, there’s more to be taken away from fashion week than you’d think.
“They’re trade shows meant for press and buyers to dissect and edit,” says Isabelle Kountoure, fashion director at Wallpaper* magazine, “but what is presented at the shows trickles down to the broader industry and becomes trends that all men inevitably buy into. What we’re wearing reflects where we are in society—that’s what makes the men’s shows so interesting.”
With 40-or-so looks per collection, a menswear season means roughly 5,500 outfits shown over two weeks, begging the question of how clear-cut said trends can be, with so many garments on the radar.
But the overall mood of the catwalk shows creates a global vision of colors, fabric combinations, new fits and styling ideas—making fashion week invaluable for the menswear spinning wheel, explains Katherine Yoo, head of merchandising at online retailer Thecorner.com. “[The shows] are essential in order to understand new moods, through the most iconic pieces,” she says, citing the bomber jacket, reinterpreted in new ways at Kris Van Assche, Marni and Kenzo for spring.
But if you browse runway pictures on Style.com or watch live-streamed shows on brands’ websites, it’s not just specific garments that identify what will look on-the-money this season. “Looking at tailoring in runway pictures is the easiest way to identify trends,” says Ms. Kountoure. “Jacket lengths, whether they’re single-breasted or double-breasted, how the trouser is cut—these are tangible indicators of changing trends.” Pay attention to styling, too, she adds. “If you dissect a runway look, you’ll usually end up with several very wearable pieces, which can look more extreme when put together.”

Fashion shows have more significance for designers whose visions change each season than for those who stick to the same aesthetic, Ms. Yoo notes. But either way, they “communicate a specific vision and identity through the location, choice of music, the models and their styling.” These elements can help anyone identify labels with a personality or attitude akin to their own—their “spirit labels”—which provides focus and, ultimately, takes the pain out deciding how to dress.Read more at:evening dresses online