Here are some beautiful toy/sculptures recently exhibited by Zoe and David in the Rossana Orlandi space in Milan. The sculptures combine re-appropriated objects and old toy parts. Some of them have articulated moving parts, allowing them to be configured in different ways.

It definitely wasn't all work.

On my way back from Docklands and the Girlguiding do, I found a bit of a crowd at my neighbour's house. Stik of stick men fame was doing some wall painting in the front garden and had gathered an admiring crowd. When I mentioned that I had met Jack Petchey at the Guiding do he said that he had also been helped by the foundation in the past. There is an academy up the road from us called 'Petchey Academy' it specialises in medicine and healthcare. So many coincidences...

Anyway Stik is painting some works for the NHS highlighting the various addictions that plague local society. I think that more than that he's got lots of people talking together on the street who normally don't even notice each other's existence.

You can make your own guess about the references here. And if you look carefully you can see a man wearing an Ally Capellino Jonathan, bought for him by his very generous wife he told me.

Yesterday I was asked to open an exhibition at the Museum of London docklands celebrating 100 years of girl guiding. I've never done anything like that before. I was a bit of a thrill seeing a small group of the 600,000 strong girls movement all wearing the uniforms that I had designed 10 years ago.

The badges definitely seem to be the main attraction, I love the way the girls make free with where they sew them on. Here's a sample of badges that you could have qualified for in the past - it must have been wartime judging by the variety - Laundress, Electrician, Carpenter, Domestic Service, Flyer, Rifleshot, First Aid and I think that the last one must be Radio. My Brownie uniform, I remember as being much like these ones from the 1920's, and as I was a Brownie in the 60's I presume they weren't so quick to update in those days. I loved my hand-me-down with it's giant, turned up hem, breast pockets, lanyard, whistle, scarf/tie, epaulettes and jangling belt.

I think that Frank is almost a direct descendant.

At the presentation of a Queen's Guide Award to a young achiever I also met Jack Petchey, who I learnt has donated £1.4m to the guides in the last 10 years. More about him in the next post.......

We were asked by Pitti Uomo in Florence to make a mini presentation of our 30 years exhibition.
Here are a few pics....
All the stuff fitted beautifully into 6 wooden crates - made by Rupert. He shows more of how it looked.

And the final wall condensed into 3 x 7 metres. Oh, and a sneak preview of SS2011 there as well.

Donald and I go way back. We were both at Tadcaster Grammar School in the 70's, but I was the older, and so as is normal, I didn't notice him. He was in my sister Frances' year and then they were both at Art School in Newcastle. I first met him when we were looking for a photographer in about 1996. I love his honest style and love of the big outdoors. We seemed to shoot more than once in near blizzard conditions at Dungeness. Here are 2 films that he has made for the 30 years of AC exhibition. The first is all the portraits of Bag wearers including every shot, over 2000 of them. The second is the film "Timothy" of the bag we made 5 of to be sold in aid of CWAC.

To buy the last orange leather 'Timothy' of the series go here .............. it's in a very good cause.

it's been and gone now, although a couple of the bags remain, but here are the pictures of our leather Frank bag presented in an almost holy way at Liberty - catch it before it ascends to the heavens. Rupert's presentation is almost profane.

We went to NY to show our new winter 2010 collection to the buyers. I didn't take a camera, but Fader put it on their website and so it seems fair that we should have a little preview here too. There's an interview with me as well, sandwiched between 2 others - they love our colours!!!!!!

Here are Zoe and David at Tent in Spitalfields for the LDF. Proud owners of their new toy, which it sounds as though is going to be a huge success in the quality toys department - appealing to kids and parents, as good as old.

proud parents

on the shelf

And here is a lovely film they made for their previous shapemaker toy.

Rupert who made the set for our studio/shop in Wapping has got an exhibition on at Elemental in Spitalfields. I went to have a look today, some lovely pieces, including a kind of a bachelor's cabinet downstairs that I loved. Here's another from his website