Wednesday 28 September 2011

Our trip to New York

Some of the Aruna Seth team will be heading to New York soon for Bridal week.  We'll be working hard in New York meeting all the buyers from the major bridal stores in the US from Kleinfeld to Neiman Marcus.  Our shoes are super popular in the US, especially our coloured fushia pink and tiffany blue shoes...During New York Bridal week there are some amazing catwalk shows to visit from Romona Kerveza and Anne Bowen.  Magazines like The Knot and Martha Stewart organise the most amazing parties one of which is taking place at the New York Public Library.

We can't wait to get out to New York and I'm already planning my outfits for the trip!  My most recent purchase has been a beautiful Reiss nude/blush dress called Donatella covered and dripping in clear sequins.  I was a little influenced to purchase this Reiss dress by Kate Middleton and the beautiful Jenny Packham dress she wore recently; I love her choice of neutral pink colours and a dazzling bit of sparkle...


I will of course be matching up my beautiful new dress with a pair of gorgeous Aruna Seth nude patent platform heels with a crystal butterfly...

Counting down to New York, two weeks to go...





Thursday 22 September 2011

Vogue Fashion Night out...

The idea of Vogue Fashion Night Out is not just an evening on the tiles and networking, it’s to get retailers selling and that it does!  Bruton Street Mayfair, which is where we were was a sea of fashion clad shoppers swarming the magnificent shops of Mayfair.  London has a great source of energy and by just walking around it inspires me to overwhelming levels. You see, everybody is here to make it; to be at the top of their game and this is what I love about London. We were invited to the Matthew Williamson store event and after party – Matthew’s as ever was the party to be at. It’s so laid back and friendly and of course the clothes are amazing.  He did it in connection with Momo’s so we had a Moroccan theme and we were joined there by Vogue Editor, Alexandra Shulman, and Twiggy amongst others. Bruton Street was buzzing and all the shops were full, so London was most definitely deemed a success.  We also managed to swing by Jenny Packham’s store to see her delightful sequin dresses.  An exciting part of the evening was viewing a wrapping demonstration by Roland Mouret at his stand-alone store.  He used large pieces of material and pinned them on models to come up with some amazing pieces in minutes.  The best thing about the Roland Mouret party was the cakes he put out to celebrate his 50th birthday...

Vogue Fashion Night Out is getting bigger and bigger and now features in 16 countries worldwide; three more locations than last year spreading as far afield as New Delhi and Sydney.





Bridal Shoe Traditions...

At Aruna Seth, we’re bound to say bridal shoes are the most important investment a bride can make for her wedding day.  We’re right though as shoes are highly associated with old weddings traditions if you look-back through history and different cultures.
Coins and shoes...have a long history in many wedding traditions across the world because they symbolise prosperity, love and unity.  Placing a silver sixpence coin in the brides left shoe became part of wedding tradition in Victorian times; the coin would come from the bride or father in the hope it will bring the marriage a lifetime of wealth.  Sweden developed its own version of the ‘shoe-coin’ tradition, in the 19th century Swedish brides received a gold coin from their mother and a silver coin from their father placed in their shoes to ensure prosperity.  In Germany, a old tradition is to collect pennies for years before the wedding to buy shoes for the bride with the money collected; if all brides encouraged family members to save their pennies, no Aruna Seth shoe would be out of budget for a bride’s big-day!

Throwing shoes...in Tudor times in the UK, throwing old shoes at the end of a wedding ceremony is an old custom which originated with the ancient Assyrians, Hebrews, and Egyptians who gave or traded sandals as a symbol of good faith.  Nowadays the tradition of throwing shoes at the couple has toned down to tying shoes to the back of the newlyweds' car.  In China it is a custom to throw a red wedding shoe to the innermost recesses of the bridal bed and the shoes are never to be removed as this symbolizes a bride does not marry twice in her lifetime
Stealing shoes...traditionally bridal shoes bring plenty of fun, amusement and mischief to a wedding day due to a mixture of shoe stealing and hiding.  In India, one tradition entails stealing and hiding the groom’s shoes on the day of the wedding by the bride’s sisters and cousins.  The groom has the remove the shoes during the ceremony and the Bride’s family makes an off the wall plan to steal the shoe and hide it whilst the groom’s family tries to protect the shoe.  Usually the bridesmaids successfully steal the shoes as it is a matter of their pride and honor.  Once the ceremony is over, the groom needs his shoes back so along with his family they start searching and the bridesmaids surround him and ask for a huge sum of money which the groom pays to get his shoes back.  In Russia the ‘stealing-shoe’ tradition is carried out in reverse; at the wedding reception after the first dance it is a custom for the bride to be ‘stolen’ from the reception crowd and when the groom starts looking for her a ransom is requested.  Usually it's the groom’s friends who "steal" the bride, the bride's friends add dilemma to this tradition as it is custom to steal the bride's shoe and order a ransom from the groom to receive them back.

The Bouquet, single ladies and shoes...in the US and UK it’s a tradition to toss the wedding bouquet into a gathering of single female friends and relatives to offer good-luck; it is believed the person who catches the bouquet will become the next to marry in the future.  The custom of the bride throwing her bouquet over her shoulder to see who caught it was originally a shoe thrown over the shoulder until it changed to flowers.  In Greece unmarried friends of the Greek bride write their names on the sole of the bride’s shoe; the girls whose names are not rubbed off at the end of the evening are supposed to get married themselves within a year.  In Colombia, brides marry in long white wedding dress and during the wedding reception all single persons put one of their shoes under her dress; the groom then chooses one shoe from underneath this dress and the owner of this shoe is given good fortune to marry next.



Thursday 8 September 2011

Travel to work in style...

Next week some pretty Aruna Seth Oyster cards will be arriving.

You can travel to work in style wearing Aruna Seth and accessorizing your Oyster card.

If you are interested in receiving an Oyster card then please email into Nia at nia@arunaseth.com

We hope you love them as much as we do...



Monday 5 September 2011

HELLO! Magazine & Amanda Holden...

We rushed to the local newsagents this week to pick up a copy of the latest HELLO! Magazine because we were dying to take a look at Kim Kardashian's wedding pictures plus her three amazing gowns...

But we found it hard to turn the pages to see Kim Kardashian’s wedding pictures because we were even more excited to see our shoes were featured in HELLO! Magazine being worn by Amanda Holden.  Our lovely Nia frills gold nappa leather strappy sandals with nude grosgrain ribbon and touched with a diamante embellishment...