Inspired by Mary Berry, picnic, mermaids and flamingos – Karen Mabon’s latest collection “The World Outside This Room” is the kind of drop that gets you excited about fashion again. Finding the high fantasy in the mundane, Mabon has a knack for hyper reality, whimsy and all out fun.
It’s hard to get tired of looking at any of her scarves. While her latest collection features Flamingos, Pond Life and Dalmatians are slightly more stripped back (and no less beautiful for it) her forte truly is in her magical collage style conceptual scarves. Black Forest Gateau (which I’m lovingly dubbing Teddy Bears picnic) has everything you want from a Summer picnic. French fancies, scotch eggs, slices of watermelon, party rings, like any good art, the more you look at it, the more you discover and the more you completely and utterly fall in love.
While Mary Berry is a delight in chocolate drops and sprinkles, my favourite has got to be Colour Me Beautiful which you can bet when it’s live on the site I’ll be snapping up. Lips, eyes, blusher and girls applying make up – I can’t quite decide if I want this so I can hang it in the Betty & Bee office (I can almost here Betty cry YES from here) or just over my body. All the time. Really though picking favourites among Karen’s work is like choosing among children. It’s hardly like my love for her work isn’t very well documented. So much so that I’ve asked her to design Paul and I’s wedding invitations. I honestly can’t think of a better way to spend some of my budget and I’m delighted that she agreed to do it in the first place. Mostly because she’s one of the most talented women I know and secondly because I get to bring in something I love so much in to our day.
As always I’ll be saving up and keeping my eyes open so I can add to be rapidly growing collection. Until then though, I’m trying to convince the boy if he’ll wear a Karen Mabon X Freud handkerchief on our wedding day…..