Thursday, 5 April 2012



Home textile design competition announced for UK design students and recent graduates


Having recently exhibited in a prestigious trade show in London and received accolades for their ideology, Purvaai has launched a textile design competition for the current students and recent graduates of UK design schools themed 'Reminiscing the Raj'. 

 Priya Raghavan, Co-founder and Director of Purvaai says “With this competition we hope to offer young, talented designers a platform to reinterpret this nostalgia in their very own special way.” Applicants may choose to design prints or embroidery and suggest base fabrics, colour-ways and finishing techniques.
Applicants must register by completing the competition form, which may be downloaded from the website www.purvaai.co.uk. They must also submit a concept note of about 150 words. Competitors can send in detailed inspirational pictures and notes along with fabric choices with each design, if they so desire, however this is not mandatory.
This competition is being judged by a panel representing academia, buyers from the industry, design bloggers and manufacturers - thus making it comprehensive. Along with cash prizes and due credit, the winning designs also have the potential to be featured in Purvaai's future collections.
Learn more about Purvaai’s Textile Design Competition 2012 here.
Announcing- Judges’ panel for the textile design competition

The judges’ panel now includes-
Diane Claridge- an independent interiors designer, whose clients are among the who’s who of London;
Ellie Tennant
Ellie Tennant
Ellie Tennant- Celebrated freelance interiors journalist, blogger and stylist, who specialises in trends, interviews, shopping, columns, news, lifestyle features, design and social media;
Toolika Gupta
Toolika Gupta
Toolika Gupta- Academic and fashion and textiles researcher, whose particular areas of interest include the history of textiles and fashion, especially Indian textiles, surface design techniques, sustainable and ethical fashion and fashion studies;
Tracy Kitching
Tracy Kitching
Tracy Kitching- Charming proprietor of the popular London curated home décor store,Opium;
Vaishali Sinha
Vaishali Sinha- Accomplished textile designer and manufacturer with her own design studio and manufacturing unit based near Delhi, India.



A selection of Purvaai's exquisite decorative cushions and throws can be found at www.sinceritygifts.co.uk



Sunday, 1 April 2012

Sincerity Gifts Meets Theo Paphitis for the #SBS Winners Event


On Friday 30th March 2012 - Sincerity Gifts was invited by Theo Paphitis to his inaugural #SBS Winners Event at the Edgbaston Stadium in Birmingham.
Theo Paphitis is best known for his role in Dragons Den and is Chairman of Rymans and Boux Avenue Lingerie 

#SBS stands for Small Business Sunday and every Sunday on Twitter Theo chooses 6 of his favourite businesses to retweet to over 234,000 followers, and thus giving your business huge exposure .

We were chosen as one of his winners a year ago and have always been proud to be part of such a fabulous group of winners and have gained many 'twitter' friends along the way.

So we were really excited to be invited to meet not only the Man himself but also finally get to meet all the other lovely winners.

On the Friday morning Maria came to pick me up and we went on to collect the very lovely @AllyAtkins from The Ultimate Baby Shower, also a winner and very local to us. The three of us set off with a mixture of butterflies and excitement for our two hour journey to Birmingham.

On arrival at the Conference Centre we were greeted by a very shiny car on the forecourt. This could only belong to one person...and he was here!


We made our way into the reception were there were lots of people were mingling and enjoying the flow of drinks. We spotted a few of our twitter friends we recognised and caught up with as many as we could.

 

The time came to meet Theo Paphitis. We went into the Conference room were Kypros Kyprianou CEO of Rymans and Sponsors of the event gave us a brief introduction before Theo came on to talk to us. 
Theo talked about how #SBS started and his visions for the future, he then told us about a new website that Chris Wheeler from  Metal Frog  @MetalFrogst and a previous winner had designed especially for #SBS winners.
After Chris and Theo talked us through it,Theo held a Q & A session for everyone, which ran overtime, but Theo wanted everyone to have a chance to speak. He then wanted to know from us what we would like to feature on the website and what we would like to see develop for #SBS 
Chris Wheeler, Kypros Kyprianou and Theo Paphitis


Theo then told us we would all be receiving a certificate and will be having an official photo with him!

This would be done in alphabetical order and Theo would have to stand for at least an hour and a half with a big smile to get through everyone! But he was such a gentleman and gave everyone his time. He even took time out to personally sign Maria's name (with a kiss) on the Certificate as only one was given out.

Photograph courtesy of Tas Anastasi 

A joint one taken with Ally Aktins 

Photograph courtesy of Tas Anastasi
Small Business Sunday #sbs runs on twitter every sunday between 5 -7.30pm with @TheoPaphitis If you want to know more about #SBS and how to participate go to the new website www.theopaphitissbs.com   -