The Festival of Britain at The South Bank Centre

Yesterday I spent a scorching hot day in London pretending to picnic on top of the South Bank Centre.

It was the press preview of the Festival of Britain celebrations, that kick off today and carry on until September and they wanted 2 “models” wearing, and I quote, “fabulous glamorous 50s dresses” to hang around and have their photo taken. I say “models” as whilst Kitten von Mew may be a model I’m certainly nothing of the sort, being more the amateur “prance about in front of the camera and hope no one notices my fat arms” type.

After much wardrobe dilemmas (my selection of 50s cotton sun dresses are lovely but not “fabulous” or “glamorous”) both Miss Matilda of Able Grable fame and the lovely Hokulele came to my rescue and sent me evening dresses. Then suddenly picnics and beaches were mentioned and I ended up in a cotton day dress anyway, with added petticoats. Oh well, I shall use this as an excuse to invest in more fabulous dresses, just in case!

FAR too early in the morning to be wearing petticoats and eyeliner.

Spot the one that’s a professional model! ;o)

I have no more pictures of me and Kitten as I was on the wrong side of the lens, however I can point you in the direction of a teeny tiny picture on this blog and to BBC London where you can grab a brief glimpse of me forgetting I’m supposed to be smiling at 1:19

If you spot us anywhere else let me know! Kitten spent some time posing on the urban beach in a gold vintage swimsuit so I imagine they’ll turn up somewhere!

The Festival of Britain is not intended to be a recreation of the 1951 event, more a celebration, staying true to the original intention of the festival and celebrating the best of British art and culture. Other than that all I can say is that the roof garden and urban beach look amazing, you should definitely pay it a visit if you get the chance.

The Festival of Britain opens this weekend (and you can see Chouf Ouchouf, an acrobatic act that I’m going to see at The Norfolk and Norwich Festival in a few weeks) and then it will run right through to 4th September with a whole variety of events on show. Visit the South Bank Centre website to find out more about it.