Days of Spring

For native Bulgarians such as myself, yesterday was officially the first day of spring when we like to give each other 'martenichki' (pictured below) which symbolise health, prosperity and general wellbeing. When you see a stork, this means that spring is well on its way and you can hang your martenichka on a blossoming tree. London was looking pretty stormy a few days back, but with March underway I hope to see some more of this gorgeous sunshine we are having today.

In the spirit of all things Bulgarian and spring-inspired, this would seem like a good time to post the pictures from a recent photo shoot I organised and styled for a masters project is due next week. It's all about re-contextualising Bulgarian national dress and placing it into a high fashion context, which is what I have tried to do through these photos. Each image has one or two elements of traditional Bulgarian dress and I really like the way the photos have turned out. I have given them a slightly cross-processes effect which also adds to their interesting feel.

The pink feather headdress that you can see in some of the pictures is my first attempt at some DIY, which actually turned out rather well for the photos but ended up falling to pieces soon after the shoot. I love the colours of it though and I wish I could prance about with it on in real life....but I'm sure I'd get some funny looks so I won't. Unfortunately, all of this reminds me that I need to start writing up the accompanying essay to my project so I'm sorry if I'm a bit awol this week.

PS If you're in or around London, you should definitely check out this designer flash sale going on on 65-67 Monmouth Street in Covent Garden. I went there today and there are some seriously cut price designer goods such as Tibi, DKNY, D&G, Halston, Vivienne Westwood and others. It will be on every day until 6th March and they are getting new stock in daily so definitely worth a look. Jeans were around £60 and there were dresses are skirts going for around £50-£60 too.