Palm Dog Awards in Cannes

Ewan McGregor looking devilishly dashing with one of our Union Bone Babies

Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley) looking beautiful with our ceremonial Palm Dog Collar & Bandana

Terry Gilliam looking AMAZING, with Jeremy Irons (ignoring him!?)

The Palm Dog Ceremonial Collar to be awarded to the canine winner, alongside the Tatty Devine Medal for the owner

It's been a bit of an exciting week at Creature Clothes HQ, and at last we can reveal the big exciting secret that we've been keeping for far too long... 

Several weeks ago we were very honoured to be asked by Tatty Devine to assist them with the doggy side of creating the prizes for the winner of this years Palm Dog Award in Cannes.  So we got knee deep in diamante and created the fabulous Ceremonial Collars and goodies for the Diamond Palm Dog.

To celebrate our Queens Diamond Jubilee and all things British, Union Jacks were the order of the day so we loaded up the Palm Dog suitcase full of Union Flag Bone Babies, bandanas and beds that popped up all over Cannes in the hands of some very exciting and fabulous people.

The Palm Dog Awards are for the best canine performance in a film screened during the Cannes Film Festival and are judged by a jury of critics: 

Kate Muir (The Times), 

Charles Grant (Heat), 

Peter Bradshaw (The Guardian), 

Christian Montggard (Information Copenhagen)

Kaleen Aftab (The Independent).  

The ceremony is organised and presided over by Mr Toby Rose with his "dogophone".

Previous winners are a roll call of canine celebrity royalty:

2011 Winner - Uggie (The Artist)

2010 Winner - Albert (Tamara Drew)

2009 Winner - Dugg (Up)

The winners of the Diamond Jubilee Palm Dog 2012 were Banjo played by Smurf

ably assisted by Poppy played by Ged

in the film Sightseers by Ben Wheatley (seen below holding the Ceremonial Collar aloft!)

Ben Wheatley winning the Diamond Jubilee Palm Dog 2012

Banjo played by Smurf

Rural Life vs Urban Living

Rural or Urban life... the eternal debate

And so to the omnipresent question...  life in the countryside full of fresh air, clean living, fields of cows mooing, stars twinkling in the night sky, those nights only interrupted by the gentle twit-ing and two-ing of owls on the hunt, a quiet life of calm, with quite a bit more space.  Or should it be an urban life?  The air not so very clean, the streets pretty filthy, the nights filled not with stars but with the blinking of aeroplane lights ferrying busy people in and out of the busier city, and not so much the sound of owls, but the odd screech of an urban fox mixed with the echos of people partying hard and the resultant effects of said partying... but an amazingly diverse life, full of inspiring people and inspiring things, each with a tale to tell.  Amazing galleries, beautiful parks and places to visit, the joys of finding a little hidden place of solace on a street you've walked up a thousand times... cool and curious people everywhere hurriedly going about their daily lives.  The visual inspiration from the street art on the walk to school each morning alone is pretty special.  Just the joy of hopping on a bus or on the tube and ending up where you want to be within a pretty short space of time... and as someone with epilepsy who hasn't driven in years, maybe this is the icing on the cake.  But it's a very squashed life.  No space, no freedom, no leaving windows open, no fresh air and no matter how safe you feel, you're always slightly on your guard.

We've had quite an interesting few days, a weekend spent with dear friends in the very beautiful and idillic Strawberry Cottage in Norfolk, then back to the East End of London via a hideous train and bus journey (the joys of travelling alone on a Sunday with 2 small children and the never ending Weekend Preplanned Engineering Works) and blowing bubbles in Arnold Circus.

There are such joys to be taken from both paths, but which is the one to choose?

Rural Living:

So beautiful

We pressed lots of poppies...

...and picked up worms with sticks

...and did lots of lush green running

Urban Living:

Watching the new street art go up

Eating delicious Pastisets from Menorca in Arnold Circus

Blowing bubbles in the bandstand with Stolli

A beautiful spot I've never noticed before

Inca & The Atlantic Swim

A day off from work and the sun is seriously shining in London Town.

And so it was to Hyde Park - the husband, the baby and me, to see the extraordinary 

Ben Fogle launch his next Big Adventure - to swim across the Atlantic.  Wow.  

The man dreams BIG!  

Ben and my photographer husband Nick Stevens teamed up a few days ago 

to take this shot for the launch.  It's pretty spectacular.

GOOD LUCK BEN!

http://www.benfogle.com/TheAtlanticSwim

www.picnick.co.uk

And here is Bens beautiful dog Inca, one of our very first customers
when she was a puppy, watching the swimming (& hoping to join in
no doubt) in her black leather with silver stars Creature Clothes collar.

Chelsea Art

One of my favourite places in London is the Chelsea Arts Club.  

Whereas the cool kids were off clubbing properly, I was to be found here mis-spending my youth in an alternative fashion, mooching around with artists, designers and all sorts of crazy Chelsea dudes.  

It was once described as the last true bohemia in London.  Pretty accurate I think.

Every party that the club throws is epic, the Summer Ball and the New Years Ball being the highlights... even the outside of the club gets painted.  The bike looks so perfect there too.

The other lovely thing about going to the Chelsea Arts Club is the walk down the Kings Road, bringing back memories of getting hitched at Chelsea Registry Office, and window shopping in Green & Stone.  Being a HUGE Herge fan, this evening I was particularly thrilled to see my old pals 

Tintin and Snowy in the window.

Jubilee Celebrations, canine style

 I'm loving all the red, white and blue popping up everywhere in preparation for the Jubilee Celebrations.  Here are some cool ways for your pets to join in with the fun, selected from the Union Flag Goodies section of the Creature Clothes website.  

Creature Clothes Bone Babies - the squeekless, eco aware toy.  We fill our Bone Babies with our fleece offcuts to minimise our waste.  These Union Flag Bone Babies are popping up all over Cannes this week as part of the Palm Dog Awards for best dog in film!

Creature Clothes Slip on Bandanas - just slide on to your dogs collar for immediate cool!

Creature Clothes Union Flag Dog Dozas & Kids Floor Cushions

Fabulously squidgy, machine washable, hand made in the UK, these floor cushions 

are simply awesome.

New Kids On The Block

In the run up to the launch of our new Creature Clothes website, we did a "CRAZY KIDS AND CANINES" shoot on Redchurch Street in Shoreditch, East London, with the brilliant photographer Nick Stevens.  I live in this neighbourhood and one of the highlights is seeing the walls and streets constantly evolving around us.  My kids and I play "Spot The New Street Art" on the way to nursery... you can't beat an urban upbringing!  

So when it came to the shoot, why use a dull old studio when we were surrounded by the most awesome of colour-full backdrops in the painting of Malarky & Stik?  This piece has now gone, but thankfully Malarky came back with more Redchurch Street Riots, so we now have a different but equally cool piece to cheer up our East London Walls.

The dogs are wearing Creature Clothes fabric collars and leads in Pink Stripe.

The kids are wearing Creature Clothes kids belts and hats in pink stripe.

www.creatureclothes.com

www.picnick.co.uk

New Fogle & Pole Vintage Welsh Blanket Dog Beds in stock!

News has reached me in my new Creature Clothes Design Studio behind the Hackney Picturehouse that we've got a delicious new bundle of Antique Welsh Blankets, just delivered to our Suffolk workshop and ready to be made in to super cool vintage dog beds.  The Fogle & Pole section of the Creature Clothes site has swatches of the new colourways where you can reserve your dogs bed on the blanket that you most fall in love with!

www.creatureclothes.com

www.benfogle.com

The Creature Clothes Site is GO GO GO!!!

Hooooooray!!!  At last... 9 months infact (this could be my 3rd baby...), the new Creature Clothes site has gone live.  It's been a long and winding road, working out what it is we're doing, what it is we want to be doing, and which direction we want to go in, but we made it!  Have a look at the site and let us know what you think.  I hope you like it!