NE1's Newcastle Fashion Week & Brix Smith-Start presents Barbour

Today marked day two of NE1’s Newcastle Fashion week, and thankfully I had no work which meant that I could attend (unlike yesterday). I was gutted to have missed the opening show but it was made up for today by the Barbour catwalk presented the fabulous Brix Smith-Start. I went along with Katy, and we were lucky enough to have a chat with Helen Barbour and Brix after the show. Cue mandatory posey picture with Brix and Gladys!

The show itself was brilliant, although the weather (ironically, though much to our delight) was not exactly Barbour weather. I thought I’d just share a few images of my favourite outfits from the show, taken by Idene Roozbayani.

I have now totally convinced myself that I NEED the floral scarf, a liberty print lined Barbour, and the cape.. Conveniently, all of the pieces which appeared in the show were labelled in Fenwick, so if you saw something you liked then it was really easy to find them in the store!

Chatting to Brix afterwards we asked how she felt the show had gone and what she thought of Barbour as a brand:
“Barbour is a well known, iconic, English brand that is very proud of its South Shields heritage. Its roots are up here, and I think that’s what made today’s show special. I think it’s important to have fashion weeks in different cities where you can nurture the talent and the great brands from that city, bringing a focus to people who aren’t really aware it. A lot of people may not realise that Barbour is a company from South Shields!”

“The pieces in the show are fantastic. I mean with the Barbour and Liberty collaborations, you get retro style of Liberty prints combined with classic countrywear that NEVER goes out of style. They compliment each other as a wonderful combination of quintessential British brands. And why shouldn’t they look great coming together? Two heads are always better than one.”

Brix was very enthusiastic about the setting itself, when I asked her about Newcastle she enthused:
“I’ve visited Newcastle a few times now. I’ve seen it changing over the years and progress into a really cosmopolitan place. It was such an industrial city and it’s exciting to see how it’s growing. I mean, look, FASHION WEEK is here! I really love the people from up here too. Their whole attitude to life is fantastic. They always seem to be friendly and cheerful and just generally enjoying living their lives.”

I can’t wait for the rest of the week!

NB. We also bumped into the lovely NLC girlies, Lisa and Natasha, who were hard at work reporting on today’s show..

Check out their blog, NLC Beauty, for the official coverage of NE1’s Newcastle Fashion Week.