A week or two ago I had an invite from the lovely Alison at Silly Old Sea Dog to a totally tropical pop up shop in Brick Lane. In collaboration with several other amazing ladies, the shop was opening for four days, offering pin up styling and cute accessories.
Fantastic Window Display
Thursday night was the bloggers and press night, so I duly said thank you and started looking for my train tickets.
I arranged to take a couple of hours off work and booked a seat on the 3.30pm train. I took my outfit and accessories to work and hastily changed in the ladies toilet. One of my male work colleagues who has never see me out of my work uniform, told me “You Scrub up Okay” so I guess that meant I looked presentable!
Even my Fan matched!
Sitting in First Class (it was only a £5 to upgrade) I sat with the latest book on the go, and enjoyed tea and biscuits listening to some music. What a way to travel!
First Class Time
I arrived in St Pancras an hour later and had arranged to meet with a lovely blogger friend, Diana from FatFemmeFabulous . She was coming from a different part of London so we picked a bar on Brick Lane and agreed that whoever arrived first got a table.
The Golden Pineapple
I travelled across to Liverpool Street Station, before walking through Spitalfields to Brick Lane. Spotting Diana we went to say hello to Alison before going to the bar to have a drink and wait for the event to start at 6pm.
Perfect Vintage Setting
The bar was called The Golden Pineapple and had a very vintage vibe to it. We sat around a little table on a vintage sofa set, decorated with pineapples. The chairs were some of the deepest, most reclined I have ever sat on, and I ended up perching on the edge as when I tried to sit back, I ended up like this!
A little bit reclined!
Perching
They had a little black book of cocktails and I decided to try the Governors Ice Tea, a blend of Gobernador Pisco, Rhubarb Liqueur, white wine & pear syrup. It was stunning!
The Governors Ice Tea
We had our drink and then left to go to the event. Alison and the other ladies had outdone themselves with the layout and decorations, it looked smashing. There was even a beautiful vintage lady DJ who was blasting out some great music.
Hey DJ
We mingled around for a couple of moments before Alison started to introduce us to the brands and their owners. Zoe, Ronke, XXX and XXX and the two ladies who were modelling for them that evening XXX and XXX
Some of the Owners
Starting at the beginning we perused rails of gorgeous dresses, swimwear and tables of accessories. Tropical punch and popcorn was offered and we munched away whilst exclaiming over all the wonderful items.
For Luna Swimwear had perfect vintage looking costumes, both in style and print. Many of the one piece retro swimsuits go up to a size 24, and bikinis to size 18. They were so beautiful and I found myself lusting over a couple of them.
We moved onto Geek La Chic who had everything from Louis Theroux T-shirts to Disney Dresses. Pin badges, patches and even shoes caught our eye. I may have picked up a Harry Potter dress for Little Chick as it was too good to miss out on.
I may have picked up a Harry Potter dress for Little Chick as it was too good to miss out on.
Harry Potter!!!
Ronke who owns and designs all the clothing for LoveURlook was someone I had met on several occasions. Her dresses are simply beautiful but sadly I am a little to large for them, as they go up to around a size 22.
It didn’t stop me from lusting after them all though!
Another new company to me, was the awesome Zoe Vine who had a wonderful range of dresses in gorgeous colours. My favourite had to be this beautifully draped dress in a striking Petrol Blue
Zoe Vine
Some of her designs do go up to a 20, however most of them are size 16 maximum. It was still lovely to see them in all their glory!
Lastly of course was Silly Old Sea Dog with all her amazing prints and fabrics. At this point Alison told us that the range will mainly be up to a size 24, however she can do larger sizes on commission and for a small amount extra.
This is something that I have taken advantage of in the past with my mermaid print dress, which came out amazingly well.
I think that I would find it very hard to choose one to order, as I had around four favourite prints, especially the vegetable one!
We spent quite awhile perusing all the items before being joined by Hayley from Curvesandcurl who I hadn’t seen in quite awhile. We had a good catch up before the amazing George from Fullerfigurefullerbust arrived.
PS Babes
Queue a dress trying on session which ended up with Hayley looking adorable in this pineapple print SOSD dress, and George in a red Gingham cactus dress from LoveURlook.
Hayley in Pineapples
Georgina in Cactus Gingham
Sadly it was all too soon to say our goodbyes to the pop up shop, and Diana and I returned to The Golden Pineapple for a diet coke before leaving to catch my train home.
Diana and I
The evening sadly had come to an end, and I made my way back to the train station to get back home. I was absolutely starving so popped to Prime Burger at the station, and sat in my first class seat chomping down on this huge burger.
What a way to travel!
Prime Burger