Coachella Day 2

 

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Only one more day left, and im already feeling a little blue, its going to be hard to leave this fun land.
Saturday was one of our Fp girl’s birthdays and of course we celebrated in style. Woke up to a champagne breakfast, which after a night of heavy dancing was the best thing ever!

We chilled out on the patio soaking in the sun rays then headed into the festival giggling to cheesy pop in the car. Parked in VIP then snap happy me got to work. The look for Saturday was definitely long dresses (the Meadows were out in full force) loads of girls were wearing feathers tied in their hair too, which i thought was pretty cute.

An inspirational idea i had from the girls here was to wear the cute lingerie slips with denim shirts an idea i might just steal!
It was so nice to see a lot of people recycling their Free People shopping bag too and using it as a great festival bag, i was also choked to see a guy sporting one and still managing to look cool!

The music of the night made me so proud to be British…
Hot Chip, The XX ( oh oh oh Jay-Z came on and collaborated with them, which was beyond amazing) and headliner of the night MUSE. Geeeezzzzz Louise the MUSE was incredible – a great performance that blow me off the face of the earth. A visual masterpiece with the sickest light show ever!

Got back to the villa feeling pretty dazed – an amazing day!

down by the seaside

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the house where our team stayed in essaouira (and shot several images in the book) was so special it deserved its own post.  named “atlantic,” the house is located right off of essaouira’s medina and looks so cozy and relaxing i would never want to leave.  wooden stairs climb towards the sky and rooftops fade into mountains on the horizon while the atlantic ocean laps against the shore.  an opening in the roof allows natural light to flood the space, and even an occasional sprinkle of rain. when the heat of the sun is replaced by a cool evening breeze, there’s a fireplace to curl up next to and a cozy nook awaits to fall asleep and dream about what the next day will hold.

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from the rooftop

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when you wake up in the morning head to chez driss for some coffee, orange juice and potates! they might look like potatoes and the name sounds like potatoes, but these are potates- one of our team’s favorite things to eat in morocco.  these little almond flavored pastries are not easy to find- they are actually unique to essaouira, where you can find them at a bakery located on the place moulay el hassan called chez driss.  another neat fact – orson welles filmed several scenes for the 1952 film othello in essaouira, and it is said chez driss is where he would sit and have his morning cup of coffee at a patio table.

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Coachella day 1

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It was a long drive from Santa Monica to Indio where Coachella is held the traffic was crazy but worth it when we finally arrived at the La Quinta resort. Wow Weeee it was beautiful like a little Mexico getaway. We threw our bags in our room and headed into the Californian Sun drenched music land
The festival was like a free people summer camp, I couldn’t believe my eyes so many girls were wearing Free People and looking adorable in it too J
The most seen items were the; Ends in Sequin Dress, the long maxi dresses and the Bag for Coachella was no doubt the studded side sling bag!
My look of the day was the girl above in the yellow crochet dress; she had the look spot on!!!
After stalking the Style Savvy crowd we headed to see Passion Pit perform and yes we danced so hard, the warm desert breeze came as the sun went down ready for LCD Sound system and of course headliner of the night Jay-Z who finished off the night with a storm, bringing Beyonce onto the stage wasn’t a bad idea either everyone went wild.
Happy thoughts-àsleep
Stay tuned!

artwork from morocco

continuing with our exploration of morocco, today i wanted to share some of the work of moroccan artist, andre elbaz.  i was first drawn to his landscapes…they have such amazing texture and color that capture the energy and spirit of morocco.  the use of cubism gives them a surreal quality but the varying sizes and colors make them appear to sparkle like a living, breathing city.  the second one reminds me of looking down at urban landscapes from an airplane, seeing only clusters of light, thinking about all the tiny ant-like people that are down there going about their everyday lives.

more below…

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it’s coachella time!

We’ve landed in California and are ready to hit one of the best Music festivals around.

The anxiety was unbearable @ the airport… so we thought the best way to beat this before the 5 hour flight was to wash it away with crabby fries and Blue Moon beer. My did it work… followed by  a blast of our pre Coachella playlists on our iphones!

We packed light as we figured there will be no time for 5 hour dress ups. Denim shorts, crop tops neon lingerie and yes an array of the free people bandeaus. Oh, and one must not forget the leather jacket and wayfarers. You can’t do a music festival without having that little touch of rock ‘n roll to your attire.

We landed in California and packed up our SUV and drove down to Santa Monica (where we were staying for the night) with Jimi Hendrix vibrating the air around us.

We arrived at our destination tired and nauseous. However, the flood lit pool that welcomed us was enough to perk our spirits up again. Spag ball and red wine followed with chats of our next day plans.

Heads hit pillows at 10.30 with dreams of Coachella…

Now we are up and ready to go eeeeeee the excitement is unbearable.

Stay tuned for Day 1 Coachella!!!!

(via fp jemma)

space 15 twenty spring outfit winner!

the winner of the space 15 twenty spring outfit contest is adalinda! i love how she took a simple outfit and played it up with accessories – she looks comfy and stylish! as winner, she received a gift card and her outfit was featured on the space 15 twenty blog.

the items pictured above are: we the free solid swept away tunic; worn in leather belt; twisted chain & rock bracelet; bonnaroo braided headband; tied tight rock necklace; fp destroyed skinny jeans; lace trimmed bandeau; turquoise raw stone ring.

record store day!

tomorrow, hundreds of independently-owned record stores across the country are celebrating record store day!  there is nothing like a good record store…one that you walk into and immediately feel your ears perk up to catch whatever the store is playing, because they always have the best tunes on as background music while you dig through piles of records and used albums.  the staff knows more about music than you do and makes recommendations for albums you didn’t even know about yet, but sure enough end up on repeat in your stereo.  countless times i’ve stopped into my favorite local store, a.k.a. music in old city, with the intentions of buying one album, but leave with my arms full of new treasures and practically run home to listen to them all.

the record store day website has a complete listing of all the venues participating tomorrow, and a lot of them will have special promotions and in-store visits from musicians!  so make sure you stop by your local store to say hello and pick up some tunes :)

a.k.a. music, philadelphia

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the king of all record stores…amoeba music on haight street in san francisco.  man i miss this place.

castles made of sand…

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about a three hour drive through the desert to the west of marrakech will bring you to the seaside town of essaouira in morocco.  from the pictures you can feel the laid back vibe of a quaint fishing town, but essaouira also has an artistic culture that is very much alive- its medina houses several arts and crafts businesses, the beach is an ideal location for kite and windsurfing, and for the past 12 years the town has hosted the gnaoua festival of world music.  often referred to as the “moroccan woodstock,” the festival lasts four days and attracts close to a half million spectators.  one of the city’s most famous landmarks is the castle made of sand- said to be the inspiration for the jimi hendrix song, although he hadn’t yet visited essaouira when he wrote it. several images from our april catalog were shot in essaouira, and in looking through these photos i can certainly see why our team was drawn there.

more photos below!

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happy birthday topanga!

our topanga, california, store is turning two! to celebrate they are having a tea party tomorrow and if you show up in your favorite free people dress you have a chance to be featured right here on the blog! there will also be a professional model in-store to give styling advice.  sounds like fun! if you’re in the area stop by and say hello!

the girl above is wearing our dazzling ditsy dress and triple rose headband – she looks adorable and definitely ready for a tea party!

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the perks of being a wallflower – part 3

“you see things. you keep quiet about them. and you understand.”

“so, i guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. and maybe we’ll never know most of them. but even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. we can still do things. and we can try to feel okay about them.”

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“and then patrick started running after the sunset. and sam immediately followed him. and i saw them in silhouette. running after the sun. then, i started running. and everything was as good as it could be.”