Competition Time! Win a pair of our freshest leggings!

Here at Puckoo Couture we are getting mega excited about Love Saves The Day festival at Bristol's Castle Park this weekend, where we will be representin' in the Boo-Dior tent!

We will be there amongst a whole host of shiny, happy people including leisure and party wear p-i-m-p Fuudhoods, sparkle extraodinaire Glitter Masque, Makers LDN, Sort Yourself Out Love, Skin T and  Photobooth. 

Team that with the additional sounds of the likes of Appleblim, Al-Tourettes, Hot D'Jour, T-Sex, Boogaloo, Diss Miss, Nick G, Lee P, Dance off Crew, Frenic, Kelly Love, Suchi, Chateau Neuf De Pato, The Other Tribe Dj set and Demo Mode, who will be gracing our tent of love with their bad ass tunes, and I'm sure you can understand why we are almost wetting our panties! 

We figured the best way for you guys to take advantage of our golden mood would be TO OFFER YOU A CHANCE TO WIN YOUR FAVOURITE PAIR OF OUR NEWEST LEGGINGS! (Yes, we know, we spoil you!)...

All you have to do is *LIKE* our facebook page then pick your favourite pair of leggings from the four fresh styles in our competition album and share its photo. If you can't choose which ones you like the best, come and find us in The House Of Boo-Dior to see the leggings in the flesh,  or go to  WWW.PUCKOO.COM to help your decision! 

Good luck you beautiful people!

Winner will be announced 31.5.2013 @ 7PM. 

MAKE SURE YOU SHARE THE POST 'PUBLIC' SO WE CAN SEE you have entered =). 

Puckoo Couture at Box Park, Shoreditch with best in British fashion curation, Secret Emporium

Ladies and gentleman with a keen eye for the freshest in independent fashion, you have one weekend left to find us at Box Park, Shoreditch, units 1-3 with Secret Emporium!

Tonight you will have till 8pm, for late night fashion fun.

 We've been there since March 15th, and, with the lovelies at SE deciding they don't want to leave just yet, we are happy to announce we will now be staying for the Bank Holiday Weekend, till April 1st !

pic by SE

We are there lovin’ life alongside the rest of SE's ‘top 20 British Independent Designers’, such as Spanglewear, Lucy Peacock, E.A Burns, Izzy Webster and Rosa Bonita.

For those of you who haven’t heard of Secret Emporium before (you really should have, but everybody gets one ;) ), Secret Emporium believe in supporting independent makers, championing what they do and promoting what they sell. They always search for grass roots designers; the talent of the future and look to designers who are on the fringe and underground. This lovely lot seek out and initiate collaboration between designers and creatives. They hand curate events and produce immersive market spaces, for example, Box Park.

If you manage to tear yourselves away from mass chocolate bingeing (yes, we all know that is what Easter is really about) and have a look at what we’ve got going on, you will be in for a bigger treat, in the form of…

Samples from our Bladerunner Couture collection (all of which are made to order)!

Bladerunner!

You will also see items from our never-before-seen Summer in LA 2019 (S/S13) collection and Fiesta Dress range, which includes hot pants, unitards and leggings fit for that special occasion, be it festival, club night, house party…or maybe you just like to dress up to do your groceries, like we often do!

SSLA19 sneaky peak! Pic by Kevin Voller

Animals on acid! Kevin Voller

“ There are designs taken from our Couture range, but simplified and created in more affordable fabrics, to make the pieces over all more accessible. As festival season is fast approaching, our collection has been inspired by letting go of our inhibitions and running free in a field once more. So think animals on acid... Bright, metallic, sparkly, garish, clashing colours, prints, feathers, hair and lots of animal prints!” - Puckoo mumma, Dionne Thomas.

We really like the space we have, and are in our element in Shoreditch! “Secret Emporium wanted to keep the space similar to a gallery, akin to a blank canvas. With help from the in house architects, An- Architecture, we have some really sophisticated ways of displaying our items” says Dionne.

“Its been great exposure. I've always liked Shoreditch, its quirky underground scene really suits Puckoo Couture.  It’s the heart of London’s independent arty and fashion scene, and that fits well with what we stand for as a brand.”  Dionne adds.

You can check out our Box Park on facebook here.

Also, not only do we have this amazing pop up shop together, but we also have shops at their festival events throughout the summer, and Christmas markets too. And, they  have just asked us to sell on their online shop, so look out for us there!

Massive thanks to everyone who has supported us so far, and to our beautiful fellow pop-uppers!

Have a good Friday! Jenny xx

Happy International Women's Day from everyone at Puckoo Couture

Happy International Women's Day to all our soul sisters, divas and independent ladies out there!

We have been celebrating in style, including listening to lots of Lauren Hill, guys: watch out!

We also spent the afternoon at Bristol radio station, Passion. They were representing the ladies, having all female DJs, and interviewing some Bristol women doing it for themselves, including our mumma, Dionne. 

Inside the Passion studio

 Puckoo Couture take over yo airwaves!

 Intern Liz getting down to Whitney Houston

Stop press!

Did you hear us? If so, let us know on our Facebook page :).

Here's to all you inspirational femmes! Girl power!

Jenny xx 

Walk of Shame shoot

We've just got the photos back from the 'Walk of Shame' street shoot we did on Monday, and they are looking hotttt!

A massive thanks goes out to our incredible team, who braved the cold (it was fffrreeeeezzzzinnggg!) to get us such awesome results. February is definitely not the ideal time for an outdoor shoot, however the show must go on! Thanks guys; Kevin Voller for photography, Jessica Mills and Gemma Everett for makeup, Peachy Stylist for hair, Adele Toyne, Victoria Hobbs ad Natalie Harvey for assisstant styling and last but not least, Madge Clay, Donatella Pegler, Hollie G Grant and Tess Underhill for their amazing modelling skills, and for rocking it in next to nothing when the rest of us were freezing in huge coats!

Also big thanks to Motion Skate park, who let us use their space. So strange being in a nightclub after hours! It felt smaller when it wasn't filled with hundreds of ravers!

You can find the finished photos on our ASOS marketplace, our Facebook page or our online shop,  but we thought we'd give you lucky lot a little behind the scenes look.

The theme of this shoot was the morning after the night before. As the sun comes up, and clubs start kicking out, our Puckoo girls have not an eyelash out of place!

So you can get an idea of the look of the shoot, here is one of the moodboards created by our intern, Victoria.

Now for a little look at what went on behind the scenes...

 Model Tess waits with the makeup artist for her next turn.

          Good spots sometimes take a bit more effort to get to! Our model, Madge, shows how it's done! 

 My favourite location, highhh!

 Puckoo Couture, making bins look glamourous!

 

MUA Gemma Everett applies the finishing touches to model, Holly's, makeup. Loving the blue lips! But not from the cold!

To the tiniest detail... assisstant stylists/ interns, Vicky and Adele help a model with her shoes.

Big coats and cuddles with Puckoo mumma, Dionne, help to keep warm!

Holly races to get us to the next location on time. Spot the Puckoo leggings?

Motion nightclub without music felt really strange!

Strike a pose! Model Donatella in my favourite outfit of the day. It's all about bold, aztec prints!

Tess in sexy glam rock style.

                             

                                            The models pose for a final group shot. 

Jenny xx (All photos and text by me. Find more at jennyelleggit.wordpress.com).

Dressage and Cult Mountain, all in a weekend's work.

                                Images in this post by shotaway.com

Last Saturday night saw us dancing till we dropped at Lakota for Dressage, Horseplay's homo disco extravaganza, with a playful equestrian theme. We saw thousands of my little ponies filling every nook and er... tranny... and a large amount of fabulous people trotting around donning reigns, bits, whips, tails and brush mohawks. As well as the amazing decor, which also featured horse themed visuals in the form of a video installation (by the mega talented Jak Flash) we spent most of the night gawping at in wonder (especially at the 2 piece patterned crop top and legging outfit worn by a contortionist crawling through My Little Ponies and at the lady in blue, one of our fave models, Aiyla- Beau. ), there were cutting edge performances on the stage, including the best male pole dancer we have ever seen (ok he may have been the first male pole dancer I have ever seen, but he rocked it). 

Music ( house and disco, of course darlings) was supplied by the likes of Pardon my French, Shambarber, and the Horseplay guys themselves.

             Our head designer Dionne (centre) and me (just! on the left) dancing the night away

We were sad to have narrowly missed dressing the dancers for the main stage, due to be being too busy with our Fuze fashion show, but hey you win some, you lose some. 

The cherry on the top of our night was when we found ourselves dancing with two of the walkabout performers, who teased us, got down low for us, then had a hilarious interpretive dance style argument. They also had on two hella fabulous outfits! We would love to meet them again for some style tips. 

 The walk about performers

We also loved these three outfits

The night taught us that gays really do have the best fun! Well gays and us, of course!

The next morning we dragged our hungover asses on to the coach to head for London, for the opening of new artist emporium, Cult Mountain, in our capital city's vibrant Bethnal Green. 

Read our next blog for more on that, including an interview with wicked and bad performers, My Bad Sister. 

Jenny (for more by me see jennyelleggit.wordpress.com) xx

FUZE 2013

FUZE 2013!

Hey Girls and Boys, we hope you really enjoyed Fuze this year, we know we did ! 

So we decided to get together and share our thoughts on Fuze and constructing the exciting new collection and to share some photos from the night, so you lovely lot can get a peak at the new "SILA19" (Summer in LA 2019)

(photography by Jak Flash)

Dionne Thomas - Designer 

Why do Fuze?

I'd noticed Fuze before as I'd had friends (FuudHood) show there a few years ago and it looked professional and the people it attracts I personally think are of a creditable status. I was invited to show at Fuze and was flattered so I saw it as a good opportunity to promote my work and a great platform for my new "SILA2019" collection. 

The new collection?

This collection is a follow on from original Bladerunner theme, I felt that I wanted to take the collection in a new direction, as I decided I wanted to show the Bladerunner influence without it being such an obvious link to the film. 

By having a very different colour palette and new story I could approach a subject matter I really enjoy but in a fresh way. The basic theme of the collection that the Replicants from Bladerunner are in LA (2019) during the summer and there pretending to be human and fit it, with this I wanted to further explore the theme that they are pretending the be something they are not. 

Practical side?

Any new designers out there need to be aware of what goes into a collection like this: 

An important thing to be aware of is the man hours it takes to go from concept to catwalk because of this having a good team in place makes production quicker and more able to produce within the time scale. So working collaboratively is always a good strategy and will improve the quality of the final product.

In an ideal world you would secure funding or a sponsor as its expensive to produce a new collection, as buying completely new stock of fabric and patterns is exciting but you have to be aware of how much value you will get back from the collection, particularly as a collection like this is not design to sell off  as you would want to keep the sample garments for press events and general promotion of the brand. 

This is the way I personally work as my fabric is expensive and my printed pieces are one offs so to produce more is counterproductive to my brand, however if you use simpler fabric you can adapt your selling strategy as its easier to reproduce your collection on a commercial market. This basically is dictated by where you see your work and where you want to sell.

Just like to say a MASSIVE Thank You to the team at Fuze (Maisie Waters, Becky Pile and Alice Johnston) for inviting us to take part in this amazing show, you all did a great job, good luck with the fundraising and your show next year!!!

Also be sure to check out the charity FUZE has been fundraising for the past 10 years!

Unseen is a charity established to disrupt and challenge human trafficking at all levels.

Human trafficking is the fastest growing form of international crime and is now the second largest illegal trade in the world.

Poverty, gender-based discrimination and a history of sexual and physical violence are all factors that can make women and children vulnerable to traffickers. Some are abducted and sold, some are deceived into consenting by the promise of a better life or job, and some feel that entrusting themselves to traffickers is the only economically viable option.

The UK is a significant destination country for women, children and men to be trafficked into the sex trade.

This year Fuze has chosen to support the fight against human trafficking with all proceeds going to Unseen Uk.

Find out more about Unseen and their work at www.unseenuk.org

THE TEAM

Adele Toyne - Intern

What did you learn while you worked on the new "SILA2019" collection?

I found that Dionne's approach to her collection very enlightening as the continuation of a theme but in a new colour scheme and aspect was a clever way of working with the materials and inspiration that she really loved. 

As I also draw a lot of my inspiration from film and theatre so this was something I could understand as you always go back to the same influences you enjoy. 

The hands on experience was really helpful as I was able to pattern cut/make up garments and source materials, as I was able to practice these skills I feel I have improved a lot from when I started and will help me in future with my own projects.

Personal reflections?

On reflection my ability to work under pressure is not fully developed so I would definitely need more practice in working on a large collection before I attempt larger projects in my own work. 

What did you think of Fuze?

I felt that fuze was an amazing opportunity for local designers to show case their work, I particularly enjoyed seeing the work from birdcage and other local shops as it was cool to get to know those places and their style.

The production values of the show were really good and I reflected with the other interns about our own graduate show, so this was a great learning opportunity for us to see how a catwalk was done at a large scale.

Victoria Hobbs - Intern

What did you learn?

While constructing the new "SILA2019" I had the opportunity to learn how to make binding as well as other techniques that are essential to having a professional finish to the garments,

I was also able to focus on complicated pattern cutting challenges such as the panelled catsuits. 

This has really helped me to improve in these areas and to see how a collection of this scale would come together outside of a university environment. 

Personal reflections?

I feel that I would have liked to have worked at a faster pace to ensure that everything was finished to a good standard. 

We had a small margin of error so when mistakes were made, as a team we spent a lot of time unpicking, which used up too much time.

What did you think of  Fuze? 

The collection I liked the most was obviously Puckoo couture, not like I'm bias. :D but also i really loved the unusual elements of the show such as the smoke machines and the dog in Lynda Cooper's collection. 

I felt Fuze was a really good as it is so important to get involved with other artists and people working locally in Bristol, because you should do everything you can to get your work out there. Never turn down an opportunity to show your clothes for free!

Natalie Harvey - Intern

What I learnt?

During my time helping to construct the new "SILA2019" I had to have a more precise approach to my work, so when I pattern cut the new pieces I had to be careful about small pieces and labelling them as we're working collaboratively. 

Because I'm used to making my patterns then going straight into construction I learnt the importance of leaving enough information on the pattern pieces so someone else could work from them.

Personal reflections?

I feel that I would like to improve my efficiency while working on garments, so this is something I want to work on in future. 

What did you think of Fuze?

Shows like this are so important to young designers as you need to showcase your work and this is a really good opportunity for people to see your work, you never know who will see it so its always worth getting involved.

I really like the setting at passenger shed as this was a really cool arena for a fashion show. As this was my first proper fashion show it was really interesting to see how a show like Fuze was presented - the fusion of fashion and dance kept it fun to watch as it broke up the performances and catwalk. 

Kimberley Withington - Intern

What did you learn ?

I personal learnt how to work to a time frame and how this dictates your decision making in terms of the new collection. I mainly focused on making a panelled circular skirt which was a new challenge for me as I hadn't made one before.

Also it was extremely useful to learn how to trace off a commercial pattern which will really help me in future projects

Personal reflections?

I would like to be more efficient so this is something I will be focusing on. However I found being part of the design process very enlightening as seeing how you get from the selection of fabric to the garments being on the catwalk.

Fuze?

I thought that the Fuze show looked really good and had excellent presentation of the garments and the show pulled together really well. The fusion of 

different artistic disciplines was a great showcase of local Bristol talent and was a mutually beneficial event for all involved.

Events like this are really helpful to promote businesses with creative individuals and as I run my own label (Filthy Squirrel) this is the sort of thing I would love to get involved in.

THANK YOU!!

Written by

ADELE TOYNE

SECOND YEAR FASHION DESIGN BA - UWE
INTERN
PUCKOO COUTURE