I'm pleased to be able to say that I attended the first ever British Vogue Festival. This past weekend I enjoyed talks by the likes of Christopher Bailey, Tom Ford, Diane von Furstenberg, Lucinda Chambers and Alexandra Shulman as the Royal Geographical Society was transformed into a Vogue Haven.
At first when I heard how much the tickets were I was a bit thrown off, £75 a session for two sessions each day. However by the end of the second day, I realised the value of being able to hear such inspiring and influential people in the world of fashion be themselves, and talk freely without an eagle-eared PR hanging over their shoulder waiting to correct every last sentence.
There were many highlights of the two day extravaganza, some of which I captured on my Twitter page. Quoting the designers, models and opinion makers of the industry. One quote that was tweeted all over the blogosphere was when supermodel Natalia Vodianova stated, "it's better to be skinny then to be fat, no one likes obesity, read the Daily Mail." We all know this kind of sentence taken out of context can be completely blown up and used as amo against a person, especially a model, but as someone in the audience at the time, I'd just like to let everyone know that she was speaking 'as' the population, reiterating what we are constantly fed in celebrity magazines, fashion magazines and evidently, The Daily Mail. She was being sarcastic and humorous with it, in a 'come on have you not heard?' kind of way.
Tom Ford and Alexandra Shulman in conversation
It was situations like the above and when Tom Ford asked a blushing Alexandra Shulman if she had ever slept with a woman that made this Festival a 'you had to be there' kind of situation, and that we all should be next year in 2013 when the British Vogue Festival returns. The Vogue editors were extremely approachable, you could literally bump into them in the hallways, at the cafeteria or even find some of them holding the fort at the pop-up Vogue shop where hard backs and magazines were available for purchase. It took away the unruly stigma that everyone in the fashion industry is pretentious or a bitch, because standing there for fifteen minutes taking to a Prada donned Lucinda Chambers about my next moves in my career or how a scared graduate can apply for an internship at Hanover House really made you think you had it all wrong.
See more images and quotes from the British Vogue Festival on FiveFiveFabulous.com