Today I returned to the NEC to attend the Clothes Show. I'd won a pair of tickets courtesy of a photo competition on Facebook from Montagne Jeunesse, purveyors of yummy face masks (see my review at http://insidethewendyhouse.blogspot.com/2010/11/montagne-jeunesse-tottles-face-masques.html ).
The weather continues to be akin to the Arctic Circle and was reading -12degrees in the freezing Shropshie fog, but we braved the road. Thankfully, the further we got towards Birmingham, the adverse conditions lessened and we arrived to a comparitively balmy -3 degrees!!
I had tickets to the Fashion Show at 11am and my wonderful husband agreed to look after Freddy while I went. I just don't think he'd appreciate high fashion and male models in the same way as I would, and had visions of embarrassing toddler related moments in the presence of the fashionistas and beautiful people. So while Daddy and Fred went to play balloon football with security guards, I went to the show.
A few weeks ago, my daughter Ella and I had front row seats at the Bullring Fashion Show (another win!!) and we loved it. I fell a little bit in love with a particularly fine specimen of male modelness, and was a little embarrassing trying to stifle my "Phwoar" noises everytime he came near. At one point, the temptation to reach out and give his well oiled pecs a squeeze was quite overwhelming! So, imagine my delight to see him on the bill at the Clothes Show.
This year's show was hosted by Gok Wan. The show kicked off with singing performances from ex X-Factor wannabe Austin Drage and new boyband Inju5tice. Think I'm a bit old for all this...but I enjoyed the enthusiastic back flips and acrobatics and synchronised boyband moves!
This was followed by the most amazing fashion show. This year's theme was the movies with the scenes depicting various genres of film. Both dancers and models performed in a beautifully choreographed routine set in front of computerised scenery. Highlights for me were the gorgeous fairytale romance scene which included a fabulous ballet-esque dance; the High School Musical/Glee mash-up; the Horror scene with scary masks and horns and the fantastic Dirty Dancing scene complete with the iconic dance routine (they did the lift and everything!!!) It was total visual eye candy...fabulously performed, a brilliant movie based sound track and some rather interesting clothes too! Add to this the fact I got to see my favourite male model...it was a perfect hour of theatrical splendour!
After a hairy moment trying to find Ian and Freddy, we were reunited to hit the myriad of stalls and stands! We wandered around buying bits and bobs for the girls' Christmas stockings and getting goodie bags. We saw Jeff Brazier (bless him) and we entered all the competitions we came across. We dodged the over enthusiastic PR people who were over zealously attempting to spray us with dubious fragrances or more alarmingly "tan in a can"!! Unfortunately we had to leave early to pick up the girls from school as we were unable to enlist grandparents or auntie for pick up duties because of the weather. However, we did enjoy the time we spent there amongst the beautiful people!