New Stuff & Ibiza

This has been a busy week at Van Asch. I got a huge delivery of wash bags and purses which I have been packing up and sending out to all my stockists...

You can also buy the purses here and the washbags here. So which one is your favourite?

I also sent out some big orders to a couple of shops in Ibiza which is super exciting for me! I visited Ibiza last year, for the first time, and just fell in love with the place, so it's great that a little bit of me will be there all the time. You can now find my cushions at Villa Azuree in Santa Eulalia and Descanshop in San Antonio. Who knows, I might even have to go there on business ;-)

Well, I'm really looking forward to a quiet relaxing weekend, and whatever you've got planned, have a great one!

Fashion: Can We Dress Ourselves Happy?

Well apparently we can! It's called Dopamine Dressing and it really is a thing. It's fashions answer to these dark and difficult times.
Normally when Fashion has an answer, it is to a question like 'How can I give myself a really bad body image?' or ' how to spend too much money on a skirt that looks like a lampshade?'... Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the fashion industry. But occasionally something unexpected and positive pops out of the Fashion industry's collective gob and this is one of those rare occurrences. Dressing to make yourself more happy.

There certainly has been plenty of bright colours gracing the catwalk recently...

Pic courtesy of Fashionisers

And surely this would make anyone hysterical with laughter? Hmmm perhaps not in a good way...

Moschino Spring 2017

But it's not all about wearing jolly colours, unless wearing jolly colours makes you feel good. Personally I'd feel like an idiot, but the point it that it is more about wearing clothes that make you feel good and happy rather than just bright colours. It also starts to explain the idea of 'your lucky jumper' or whatever special good luck charm garment it may be... I do believe there is some sciencey stuff to explain it, but we need not bother our pretty little heads with that nonsense, just grab those lemon yellow flares and get out there!

You know, when I typed the words 'Yellow Flares', I really didn't think there would be all that much out there, I mean I was poking fun, but you'd be surprised! the internet is absolutely chocker block full of bright yellow flares! Amazing!

I think I'm getting very boring in my old age...favourite colour for clothes is grey. How sad is that? Only it's not sad! It's happy! Because Grey makes me feel happy, so there.

Want to know what colours Pantone thinks are the hot shades for spring 2017?

Thought you did...

And now I'm going to leave you with a peak into what kind of clothes I really like...

https://www.pinterest.se/VanAschDesign/my-kinda-clothes/

What I Really Think About Valentines Day

'Disclaimer' This is actually a repost from my blog in 2014 but I still feel the same about it and I still want to share this with you, I hope you don't mind....

Whilst all around you, businesses are trying to shove 'romantic' gift ideas down your throat, I just want to say that you don't need to spend lots of money to prove anything on Valentines day. Time and effort are the greatest gifts, breakfast in bed or a romantic meal ...you get the idea. I am nauseated by the cringey way businesses use that particular celebration as another way to wrangle our hard earned cash out of our pockets. They use those charming twin sisters of guilt and obligation to make as much money as possible. 

Now don't get me wrong, I love a bit of shopping, but for what I hope are the right reasons, not guilt and obligation. But rather for appreciation of beautiful things (that would be for myself) or because something is just perfect for someone and it would bring them lots of happiness to have it. 

I don't buy something to say 'I love you'. Nothing says 'I love you' like you saying the words 'I love you'. 

I apologise for my little rant here but the commercialisation of emotion is hideous.

Perhaps I'm also a bit bitter as my husband is not here, he's away for work…we'll, I use the word 'work' very loosely! What I really mean is playing bass in a goth band to thousands of crazy young Japanese goths! But anyway, this Valentines day I celebrate with my lovely children and am doubly happy that hubby gets to do something he loves (I'm not really bitter ;-). Personally I think Valentines day should be about love. Love for each other, love for things you do, just love. Not necessarily romantic love, let's widen the net and get more love out there and more love in here!

Clean & Dirty

Well... it's been a week since my last blog and things have been developing... If you haven't read last Friday's blog 'What I Think About When I'm Jogging' then this post will make no sense, so go check that out if you haven't already....
Ok, now we are all on the same page, I have to say that there is only so much entertainment one can get out of imagining disembodied brushes and sponges cleaning my internal organs so I thought I better take it to the next level.
This week,  hot half naked blokes have been giving my internal organs an imaginary work over...

Yep, they guy has been lovingly cleaning my liver, giving it a right good shine. 

(do my photoshop skills know no bounds? ;-) 

I wanted to show you the half naked ghostbuster strippers that are sucking up the gremlins in my lungs but I couldn't find any pictures of hot half naked ghostbusters on the internet, surprisingly. I can't tell you how much I've been laughing, trying to find these pictures though. Bloody hysterical! I also need to wash my eyes out with soap! 

I needed a good laugh today because the day started off rather frighteningly... I was driving the girls to school...I saw 3 teenaged boys on the other side of the road, one was on the footpath and the other 2 in the road. They weren't exactly monkeying about but my Spidey senses (as in Spider man) were on high alert so I drove past them very slowly, and a good thing too because one of them just decided to run across the road without looking and he hit the car. His whole body bashed into the side of the car with a huge thump, right on the wing mirror, folding it back and rolling onto the driver window with more banging. He leapt back and apologised profusely, told me he was fine, he was totally ok.. Me though, had a heart attack. Ok, I didn't really have a heart attack but I was this close to my worst fear, which is accidentally killing a child with my car, so my adrenaline was going crazy.

A few seconds difference there and something truly awful could've happened. Makes you realise how life is incredibly precious, to drive slowly and also that teenaged boys are capable of extreme silliness. So be careful out there! 

I'll leave you with this guy... he's going to go and check out my kidneys and make sure they are doing whatever they are supposed to be doing properly... 

I know it's weird that my body is filled with legions of tiny microscopic hot gay guys... I can't explain it...

Oh, and incase you were wondering, no, I don't fancy any of these blokes, not my taste at all but they are really good at imaginary cleaning of internal organs in a weird combination of mindful meditation and soft porn...seems to work.

What I Think About When I'm Jogging

Recently I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed in the department of the visual. That is to say, I've been seeing too much stuff and am suffering from overload. I often get this way after I've been showing at Formex. I'm open like a giant eyeball hoovering up information and inspiration, seeing all the new stuff coming out and also reading lots of trend articles in the magazines...and don't even get me started on the relentless eyeball stimulating Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook feeds. Well, it's all too much for me and my eyeballs...we need a break.
It isn't all the eyeballs fault. There is also the inner eye. My inner eye, or imagination department, is in hyper mode, processing all this stuff I've been seeing and running endless design concepts through my mind... It's so bloody noisy in there right now!

Which brings me on to jogging... Normally when I'm jogging I run videos in my imagination and because there is an unlimited production budget on these imaginings, then the end results are quite spectacular and usually keep me occupied for the 30 minutes or so I'm on the treadmill. However, due to my overloaded imagination I thought I would try something different whilst jogging...

Meditating on my inner organs...yep, sounds weird right?

I remember reading, years ago, about a study involving school children. 1 class was told to lay on the floor and imagine that their white blood cells were white knights riding around destroying the bad invaders. The other class was told to lay on the floor and relax but not given any special instruction. Both classes were tested before and after this session and the kids that had imagined the white knights had considerably raised levels of white blood cells. I don't know if this is a true and real thing but I figure that meditating on my inner organs certainly can't hurt and is a blessed relief from all the imaginings. However, being the kind of person I am, there is still a visual element that goes alongside but it is slow and simple.

Firstly I imaging my liver having a good clean, a bit like going through an old fashioned car wash. There are scrubbing brushes washing away fatty business and then soft rags polishing it up to a lovely dark reddy brown shine.

Then we go on the the heart. There is a pink fluffy creature resting its head on my bloody heart and wrapping its furry arms around the heart breathing in love, breathing out bullshit. Cuddling the heart to make it stronger and better at loving.

Next step are the lungs. We have tiny ghostbusters here sucking up green viral invaders.

Then there seems to be workmen in hardhats moving on to the ovaries, womb and fallopian tube department. They wipe the dust off, scratch their heads and say 'um, this area is not getting much use, lets put it on standby' then they give the pipes a bit of a kick and move on.

Next stop kidneys, I don't really know what they do so its just a cursory spit polish there and moving on to the pancreas, which I have even less of an idea about what it does but thankfully my half hour is up by this point and I can stop thinking about my inner organs and get on with the day.

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To counteract the visual overload I'm taking long dog walks in the day time and reading instead of watching  my black mirror with all it's endless temptations and distractions...

I feel good. 

If you are feeling like you have bees in the brain then go talk a deep breath of the outside air, walk in the park, pat a dog, smell interesting things, cuddle and remember we have all these other senses that can be so much fun. I'll leave you with a picture of a couple of my latest cushion designs and the one in the back says exactly that...