Hand-dyed Shibori workshop at MiH Jeans HQ + a chance to win a piece from the collection!

Endless ways to create patterns

Clothes-pegs create little white squares on the pattern

The dye appears green before oxidizing into the deep blue

Hand-dyed Shibori workshops at MiH Jeans HQ

We’ve all done this before – more commonly known as the tie-dye, even more commonly known as the shaming of a perfectly fine pair of jeans by way of a handful of rubber bands and household bleach. Let’s be honest, this was way before the time of Dr Internet, nobody knew how long you were meant to keep the jeans in the bucket for – all I remember was that mine always turned out looking as if I sat on a freshly-painted park bench, or took a very restless hobo-nap on one. Shibori on the other hand, is a fascinating alternative form of tie-dying, an ancient Japanese cloth-dyeing technique that mostly involves the colour indigo and techniques such as folding, stitching and twisting fabric, using bamboo sticks, ropes and marbles.

MiH Jeans recently hosted a couple Shibori workshops at their HQ in Hammersmith, led by LA artist Niki Livingston, and on attending one I fell in love with the set-up (“OMG, I dye”, to borrow words from Rachel Zoe) + art/science behind it all, I decided to team up with MiH Jeans to gift TWO lucky folk the chance to win a piece from the collection. Let me iterate, there are only 20 pieces available in each design and every single piece was hand-dyed by Niki herself, which took approximately about a bazillion hours (don’t quote me on this) given the complexity of the technique. Seriously exclusive. My personal favourite is the dotty Oversize shirt, reminds me of all the marbles I lost over the years…

#LetsGoIndigo

How to enter: Easy peasy – either Instagram an image of your indigo inspiration (think anything blue), tag @MiHJeans and include #letsgoindigo. Or enter via Pinterest by re-pinning your favourite image from our Let’s Go Indigo board. Check here for full terms & conditions.

Good luck!

Amulette de Cartier necklace, 18k yellow gold, mother-of-pearl, diamonds.

Ask me any day what my dreams and wishes are and I’ll point towards the second drawer in the kitchen cupboard – it’s full of pizza flyers and Indian takeaway menus of every size and colour, there may even be an actaul dried-up slice of pizza in there somewhere. Sure smells like it. Point is, it doesn’t take much to get me dreaming, and comfort food delivered to your door is definitely right up there in the list of things I wish for, along with a couple other things like: solving world hunger (#irony), banning Crocs, and maybe even finding flight MH370. I also wish the internet would stop revealing spoilers for Game of Thrones.

Speaking of dreams (rêves), I wanted to share a couple photos I shot for Cartier for the launch of Amulette, a collection of charms inspired by the idea of talismans that captures one’s wishes and dreams. See, this necklace is held together by the clasp like a padlock (similar type of magic as seen on front-fastening bras); the diamond is set onto the mother-of-pearl, framed by 18k yellow gold, all of which composes a perfect little charm that resembles some kind of a magical mechanism that catches and stores dreams (pokéball?). Although, in my case, what with all the pizzas and kebabs, it’s closer to a horcrux than anything… Despite the slight fairytale aspect, I decided to shoot it in a luxe, yet ordinary setting in hopes of highlighting the concept of everyday goals and aspirations that make one’s dream come true. For example, a steaming box of pizza is waiting for me downstairs – see? today’s wish unlocked. Better hop to it!

Do check out Cartier’s new Tumblr for the full scope of the Amulette universe…

In collaboration with Cartier; shot at the Connaught hotel