Mawi, Bip Ling and Daisy Lowe
Last Thursday was the hottest day of the year, and saw the hottest launch of the year too as we opened the doors of our debut Mawi flagship store on East London’s Calvert Avenue. Excitement had been running high amongst the local children who were convinced that the world’s greatest candy store was about to open; they were nearly right- the first ever Mawi store was launched with a ‘Fairground’ theme as a candy store for grown-ups!
The concept came from Mawi herself who wanted a theme that would reflect the fun, free, imaginative nature of her creative process. But it took curator Andres Ros and his ‘crack team’- Rea Kim, Jamie Bull, Albert Hauva and Marcida Rexhepaj to bring the idea to life.
Even if you weren’t there for the party itself, you can come and see the Mawi jewellery in this fun, fresh context too- the ‘Fairground’ will be open until Thursday 21st.
Under strings of coloured lights and vintage-style bunting, guests enjoyed fairground-worthy pink meringues and sparkly gingerbread lollipops from talented confectioner Lily Vanilli, yummy popcorn and bespoke Mawi Snow Queen Vodka cocktails mixed by Maddox. Mind-blowing hula hooping from ‘Marawa The Amazing‘, tarot card reading, Charleston Dancing from The Bee’s Knees and dream DJs Margot Bowman (of legendary London night “The How”) and longtime Mawi fan, Daisy Lowe, kept everyone entertained! The after-party was at Shoreditch House (of course) and our sincere thanks to their manager, Vanessa for being such a tolerant hostess…
We were delighted to celebrate this landmark in Mawi’s journey with so many friends and supporters (about 500 in all), not just from the fashion industry and not just the familiar East London crowd. We’ve never seen so many ‘beautiful people’ including model of the moment Edie Campbell, Vogue.com’s Jade Parfitt, Jasmine Guinness, Polly Morgan- the art genius who made taxidermy cool, music legends Simon Harris and Roisin Murphy, Bip Ling and Daisy Lowe… all wearing Mawi in one place!
It was particularly fun to throw the party in East London- Mawi’s stomping ground for the past 10 years! We’re excited to be opening in a part of the city that has long been home to Mawi but which is currently and explosively making its mark as the most exciting and creative district on London’s map.
For the past 3 or 4 months preparing for this launch has been a 7 days a week, 24 hours a day labour of love. The team had to blow up hundreds of helium balloons, meticulously calculate how to suspend jewellery in mid-air, hunt for bears cool enough to wear Mawi jewellery and Linda Farrow sunglasses… someone even had to drive half-way to Scotland to collect the fairground machines from an Ebay lady who bizarrely and miraculously had all the bizarre things we’d been hunting for!
Everyday a steady stream of exciting and intriguing packages have been arriving at the Mawi studio, from mountains of pick-and-mix sweets to enormous rainbow-coloured gobstoppers, miles of bunting and hundreds of bouncy balls.
But as intense as the past few months have been, this is a dream that Mawi has been working up to for the past decade. It has taken patience, hard work and a lot of love to reach the point when it finally feels like the perfect moment. On the night itself one of the party goers said to Tim (Mawi’s husband and Managing Director of the brand), “When we spoke about this party 6 week ago you said this was going to be the perfect summer’s evening. How did you know?” Well, it just had to be…
Visit the Mawi Flagship Store at 11, Calvert Avenue, London E2
More Details @ www.mawi.co.uk
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