This week the office has been very full! All of our store managers have come into town for workshops and meetings that are going on at the home office. As they rotate throughout the building you can’t help but notice the beautiful fashions they showed up in. Many have on Free People pieces, and it’s so fun to see how they interpret the items for themselves. True to Free People spirit, there’s a lot of flowing bohemian looks, gypsy-like patterns, and intricate crochet/lace. It’s not often that we get to have these ladies around, so we snapped their style while we could. Enjoy!
Did you know that Chicago was recently rated one of the best cities to be a single lady? That got us thinking… what will our most devoted single (and coupled for that matter) ladies wear on their dates?
To celebrate our newest Free People store opening in Chicago, we decided to bring out our Art Director/Lead Stylist who is responsible for so many of the amazing Free People looks – and she will style you ladies for your next date night!
We hope you’ll join us, share some snacks provided by Southport Grocery & Cafe, and celebrate our new store opening!
The event will take place Tuesday, September 6th 6-9PM
at our new Chicago store, 3447 N Southport Ave, Chicago IL
Doors officially open on September 7th, so you will also get a first peek at the newest collection and have the chance to shop early!
And, please feel free to bring a guest, just let us know if you can attend and how many will be with you :) You can RSVP on our Facebook event page.
Plaid is totally in right now (okay, it’s pretty much always in), and we have tons of it on our site. It’s the perfect print as we’re moving into fall since it has a warmer, cozy feel. Which plaid piece will you be getting for your wardrobe?
Looking through our September catalog you can feel Fall emanating from its pages. Cozy knits and texture, plaid and lots of layers – all things that I can’t wait to wrap myself up in as the temperature drops. Shot at a beautiful old mill in New Tripoli PA by Yelena Yemchuk, the book features models Bambi Northwood-Blyth and Martha Hunt. Here’s a sneak peek…I can almost smell the crisp chilly air and hear the crunch of leaves beneath my feet…
Guess who else makes a special appearance?!
…Toby!!
The September catalog drops Tuesday September 6th.
Behind the scenes photos by Thomas Northcut except last two, by Jemma.
I have been wanting to experiment with natural dyes for a while now, and with all the great new fall colors that have been popping up on our website (and featured in our monochromatic trend) I decided that it was time. This is such a fun, environmentally friendly project that takes a little time, but very little cash.
For today’s DIY I’ll tell you about what natural ingredients you can use to make natural dyes, and what shades of color they will yield.
What I got: red cabbage, lemons, oranges, beets, yellow onions, blackberries, blueberries, spinach.
For bluish/purple dyes:
Blackberries and red cabbage can be used to make bluish/purple dyes. It’s important to remember when working with natural dyes that experimentation is key – depending on the amount of ingredients you use and how long you leave a garment in the dye, the color you get can vary.
For pinkish/red dyes:
Beets and blueberries can make a really lovely dusty rose color.
For copper/orange dyes:
I never realized what a beautiful color yellow onions can have! Their skins can make an alluring mustard yellow, coppery color.
For yellow dyes:
Orange and lemon peels can be used to make a soft pale yellow dye.
For green dyes:
Finally, spinach can be used to make a beautiful shade of green.
Now what?
To make the dye, chop up your ingredients and put them in a pot with twice as much water as ingredients. Bring the water to a boil and let simmer for an hour. For deeper colors, you can leave the ingredients in the water (without heat) overnight.
Remove the hard materials from the mixture with a strainer, leaving you with the liquid dye.
Before dyeing, you will also need to create a fixative, which will help your fabric hold the dye.
When working with berries, use a salt fixative – put 1/2 cup of salt in 8 cups of water, put the fabric in and boil for one hour.
When working with vegetables, use a vinegar fixative – mix one part vinegar and four parts water, add your fabric and boil for one hour.
When you remove the fabric, rinse in cold water.
The fabric is now ready to dye! Just drop it in the desired color, let sit until it reaches the shade you want, remove and hang to dry.
I am going to make my dyes and start experimenting this weekend – I’ll share my results next week!
Tomorrow is the first day of September! I can’t believe fall is almost upon us. But don’t put away your favorite summer shorts, skirts or tanks just yet! You can still layer with these items going into fall and create some really cute silhouettes that are right on trend. Jemma and I worked with our videographer to make this little video showing how to style your favorite summer outfit into fall! Song is Jonathan Fire Eater “I’ve Changed Hotels”
Well, it’s almost September now. Aside from cooler air, I’ve been looking forward to this month because tons of great bands are set to play in Philadelphia. I’m really excited to see Grace Potter and the Nocturnals whoI’ve listened to for a long time now, but have never gotten the chance to check out live. Read More
The chill in the air this morning. No, summer is not over just yet, but fall is definitely creeping in. And that means time to break out the thermals.
FP thermals are my favorite – they always fit perfectly, come in the best colors, and best of all they always have something unique either in the shape or the detailing, that sets them apart and makes them interesting. We have several thermal styles right now so we thought we’d have a little fun and make a video showing different ways to style thermals! They can be worn with shorts (and tights in fall!), skinny jeans, widelegs, tea-length skirts, you name it. Check out the video, which features some of our lovely home office gals!
From what I hear the opening event for our Atlanta store was a ton of fun! And from the looks of it, quite stylish as well :) I love seeing all these ladies rocking Free People!
