Invitation to Join LamanBlu at the Denver Art Museum to Celebrate the art of Fashion Design and the career of Yves St. Laurent

Guess what?!  We are so excited to be partnering with the Denver Art Museum during Spring Break to celbrate the art of Fashion Design and the career of Yves St. Laurent!  We want to invite you all to join us for the most fun project - we will be working with the children to design their own fashion creations on giant paper dolls.  Then we'll hold a fashion show and your child can model their paper doll creation on the runway!  The paper doll project will be held on Friday, March 30th from 11am-3pm.  I can't wait to see you and your kids there!

By the way - we ran a test of this project in my daughter's kindergarten class a couple of weeks ago - they had a ball (I had just as much fun as they did).  Here are some photos of their amazing and creative work!

I hope to see you on March 30th!!!

Salu,

Holli

Spring Giveaway!!!!!

How would you like to have this dress in your daughter's closet?!  Enter our Spring Giveaway!

To enter, like us on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LamanBlu)

and upload a photo of your child's favorite style onto our page along with a fun caption. 

This event runs from now through tax day (April 15th, 2012). 

At that time we will randomly select one winner from the likes/posts to receive the dress above (winner can choose color: aqua or bouganvillea and size:  6 months through 6x). 

We will message the winner through Facebook so they can make their selection.

More Spring 2012 Trend News

It really is finally starting to feel like spring around here - the birds are out and so is the sun, the wind has died down and the snow is melting!  My kids are feeling distracted and so am I frankly.  But there is fun trend news coming out from the big fashion shows, and I wanted to share it with you!

"In New York, London and Milan, dazzling colors predominated.  In Paris, chalky pales and pastels, blush tones and gray and cream looked fresh and less attention-crazed.  White is the right of spring in all major fashion capitals."  Marylou Luther 

LamanBlu certainly carried a Paris vibe for early spring, focusing on white and baby pastels of pink, blue and yellow.  We head more into the dazzling brights for a summer feel - when I'm always ready for a fiesta!  Prints were important in the shows also, with demure plaids and checks at LamanBlu and Jil Sander.  Surreal prints were a big feature at Prabal Gurung and LamanBlu loves this trend too, ours Pucci inspired.  Seahorses were a major theme for both Versace and LamanBlu.

"Fashion's sweet spot begins with lace:  Alencon lace, Battenberg lace, Brussels lace, Chantilly lace, Venetian lace and lace's sisters, crochet and macrame.  These airy, openwork fabrics are the networks that broadcast the news of delicacy and refinement.  Leaders here are Valentino, Pucci, MiuMiu, Luisa Beccaria, Erdem, McQueen, Oscar de la Renta and Junya Watanabe."  Marylou Luther, and of course, lace was a key element for LamanBlu.

"Enter the Little White Dress.  It's headed for stardom at Donna Karan, Hussein Chalayan, Owens, Sander and Hermes."  Marylou Luther.  Our white dresses for LamanBlu are one of the hottest selling items for early spring.  And our ballerina dress trimmed in plaid ruffles have the added benefit of being made of bamboo - which releases stains amazingly well!

"Lagerfeld's underwater wonderland for Chanel, sharks at Givenchy, scuba and surf at Alexander Wang and Ohne Titel, waves at McCartney and Peter Pilotto, starfish at Versace, sea nymphs at Armani and sea goddesses at McQueen - they all add up to a real sea change for fashion.  A truly New Wave."  Marylou Luther.  I love the ocean - it's always a grand source of inspiration for me.  You'll typically find some type of homage to the ocean and its creatures at LamanBlu, no matter what the season.  For spring, it's captured in the embroideries we selected, from seahorses to colorful crabs and lobsters.

So, what's the short of it?  Here's Marylou's wrap-up for Fashion Group International:

Best Bets:

Color:  Brights, Whites, Chalky Pastels

Prints:  Geos, Fusion, Florals, Photo Prints

Pleats * Couture Touches * Sport * Ease * Lace * Full Skirts * The Wedge Heel

The Loafer * The Smaller Day Bag * The Bag that Matches The Clothes

Vintage-Looking Jewelry, Pearls, Crosses

Happy Spring and Happy Shopping!

Easter Comes Early This Year!

April 8th - just over a month away - do you have your daughter's Easter dress yet?  We just got in our spring stock - including dresses which are great for Easter!

 Mention our blog when you order and get free standard shipping!

Paper Dolls

I've been reminiscing about paper dolls lately.  I loved paper dolls as a child!  We even created our own, cutting the fashion illustrations out of the Sunday paper, carefully mounting them on cardboard and creating new dresses for them.

Paper dolls are sort of a lost art, though there are a few folks keeping the art alive.  One of my friends is Jim Howard, a quite famous fashion illustrator in the 70's, 80's and 90's.  He had an impressive career illustrating for Neiman Marcus, Bonwit Teller, Bon Marche and the like.  He has created a beautiful series of paper doll books, drawing upon those fashions of the past.  You can check out his paper doll work at Jim Howard Paper Dolls

I've been thinking about a paper doll fashion book myself, of children, or course.....I've been doing some testing - and here's one first try at a paper doll.....what do you think?

I'm working on another paper doll project as well - GIANT paper dolls!  In conjunction with the family programs for the Denver Art Museum, as in lead in to the Yves St. Laurent exhibit which will be showing at the museum starting in late March.  Denver is the only US museum to garner this impressive exhibit!  I don't want to let the cat totally out of the bag yet, but stay tuned to learn more - and keep your calendar open the last weekend of March.  Get your kids creative juices flowing by bringing them to the museum for the family day to celebrate fashion!

And think about creating your own paper doll project with your kids this weekend......

303 Magazine Awards

Wow - thanks 303 Magazine!  The awards party was so much fun - and we really appreciate the recognition!

"We are celebrating the people & places that made 2011 great to be in Denver!
The 303 Award is given to people and entities who have contributed to progressing the fashion industry in Denver.
And the winners are:Holli Gibson & Rustin Coburn - Denver Design Incubator
These two are leading the fashion pack at DDI, keeping homegrown talent in Denver and teaching those with fashion aspirations how to reach their every goal.  Such openness in this do-or-die industry is a style we can all get behind!

Chris Parente - Fox 31 TV Personality
Autumn Binion - Fashion Show Producer
Denver Art Museum
Debra Mazur - Common Era"  (303 Magazine)

Hyperactivity and Artificial Food Coloring in Children

Let me start with a disclaimer that I am not against all medications, and some children absolutely need the appropriate medicines to maintain and improve their health.  I am an advocate of limiting meds to those necessary though.   Though I don't usually blog about issues related to children's health - and am no expert certainly - I read an article this weekend that got me thinking about my own children's health - one in particular. 

The article was in the Highlander Magazine for this month (www.HighlanderMo.com) and it was discussing artificial food colorings in regards to children in particular.  When my son was small, he was particularly susceptible to artificial food dyes.  Sugar really didn't affect him adversely, but artificial dyes did.  I had suspected it for quite some time.  We were very careful about his food, so he didn't have things very often that had artificial dyes in them.  It would be at a large family gathering, or a party, or camping or the like, so I wasn't absolutely sure if it was too much activity, too much sugar, or the dyes or some other factor, but I did suspect the dyes.  One camping weekend, we had a major rainstorm and ended up in the tent all afternoon.  We were reading books and playing games, he was probably 4 at the time.  We had our "camping food" (which means some junk food - including Cheetos) and he wanted some.  I was trying to stall, thinking how miserable it would be crammed in a tent with a hyperactive child if food coloring was indeed the root of his issue.  My husband joined his side, so I gave in and decided to use this as the "test" once and for all to deduce the root of the issue.

My sweet little child, who had been moments before (and the hour before that) playing contentedly went from a calm little boy, to a totally hyperactive one, bouncing off the walls of the tent, literally unable to control himself.  WOW!  I, of course, became much more vigilant about eliminating any artificial dyes from his diet and we had no further problems.

I should mention, that my second child has not had the same issues with artificial dyes, and I am thankful that my older finally outgrew this extreme sensitivity.  But, back to this article - it states that the "Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) found compelling evidence that ingestion of artificial dyes can contribute to hyperactivity, restlessness and attention problems in some children - particularly those with ADHD.  What's more, the studies suggested that removing dyes from those children's diet was a quarter to half as effective in reducing those symptoms as giving kids Ritalin or other stimulants."  According to Nancy Cordes, CBS News' Consumer Safety Correspondent.  "In other words, certain kids with ADHD might not need drugs if the artificial dyes were removed from their diets."  WOW!

I've had several friends (particularly in large school districts) who have felt bullied into giving their kids Ritalin by the school district.  I'm not saying that artificial dyes being removed from those kids diets would have solved the entire problem, but wouldn't it be worth finding out?  Even a small impact in the overall health and behavior of the child by the removal of artificial dyes could be profound, and with no adverse side effects!

Again, I'm in no way trying to preach to anyone, just sharing a provocative article I read this weekend and my own personal story.  Food for thought.....and health