Wednesday 24 August 2011

New Look Style The Nation



I forgot to mention that while the show New Look Style The Nation was on TV I applied for tickets from SRO Audiences and managed to get some for the Cardiff round of the show. For those of you who didn't catch it, Nick Grimshaw was tasked with the job of scaling the country for budding stylists. He selected a shortlist of six from each major city including Manchester, London, Birmingham, Cardiff and Glasgow and then two stylists, whittled it down to just two from each location. The two from each location would then be given £300 to buy outfits for three different scenarios under a specific theme, like a date, a picnic and meeting the parents under the Androgynous theme. The winner from each show would go on to appear in the final. 


So me and my friend Emma (below) got up very early one Saturday morning to venture to drive from Cardiff to the studios in West London. We arrived at about 10am but filming wasn't due to commence until about 11am so we had to hang around for a bit and then we were ticked off a list and given a wrist band to wear. We were then directed into the studio where we stood in an area between a stage and a semi-circle catwalk. 



Nick Grimshaw soon appeared and started speaking to people in the audience. He was so incredibly lovely and really funny, I just fell in love! He had a very tight fitted grey and red checked suit on with some black worker style boots, which so many men just couldn't pull off but somehow he actually looked quite hot in it!! 
The first thing to happen was a live performance of Dappy from N-Dubz and Tinchy Stryder singing their new song Spaceship, which was recorded to then go out at the end of the show. We were asked to woop and dance to the track even though it was only 11am in the morning, we were all very sober and none of us knew the song! Anyway we did what we were told and bopped away to the track and woop in the right places as they recorded it.  
The rest of the show was live so we weren't allowed to take pictures of the outfits during the show, only in ad breaks but had to woop in and out of ad breaks to add to the atmosphere. We also had to laugh at jokes, which in places wasn't hard anyway as Nick Grimshaw is pretty amusing anyway. His hair also had a life of its own. I don't think I know anyone whose hair stands straight up like his does with little help!! lol

I think shows like this really separate the people who just like fashion and are obsessed with clothes from the people are have a real flair for styling. Every girl who lives fashion dreams of working in fashion as a stylist, a buyer, a designer, but most of us really aren't cut out for it as a career and that is what this show really highlighted.

The girls on our show were ok, I wouldn't say I was completely blown away by the outfits they produced but it was interesting to see what they came up with. One of them had androgyny which is pretty hard to say the least while the other one had like 70's which was a lot easier if you ask me. On the panel was fashion designer Giles Deacon and New Look Creative Director Barbara Horspool, who are on the panel every week with a guest judge and for us it was singer Alexandra Burke - which was a surprise to me as I don't think she is that stylish really??


'Grimmers' - totally love him!


The whole experience was really fun and we could have got tickets for more of the shows but to be honest it was a bit far to trek from Cardiff. I did Sky Plus the series and a girl called Sara from Manchester won after a tense final but she had a very obvious natural flair for fashion and styling, whereas a few of the other finalists were a bit like me, totally obsessed with fashion but not cut out to be a stylist.

Check it out on http://www.channel4.com/programmes/new-look-style-the-nation/episode-guide/series-1/episode-3

If you also want to get tickets for other shows sign up to SRO Audiences and you can get tickets to things like Alan Carr's Chatty Man, Dancing on Ice, The Jonathan Ross Show...the list goes on.


2 comments:

Side Street Style said...

Hi Bambi

Love the blog, came across it on the Cardiff bloggers site. I am also a fashion/style blogger based in Cardiff - now following your blog, would love to link exchange - let me know.

Laura x
www.sidestreetstyle.com

Bambi said...

Hi Laura
Sorry only just saw your comment. I'm glad you like it! Yeah more than happy to link exchange. I put you on my blog reading list. Are you on twitter? I am @lizoulton
xx