Our Covent Garden boutique played host to nail artist Scratch Dollface and vintage hair stylist Flamingo Amy this weekend, surrounded by roaming vintage store Rag & Bow. We started the weekend off in style with a launch party on Thursday with bucket loads of delicious cider from Friels, and designer Cleo Ferin Mercury on the decks. Here’s Cleo wearing one of the Tatty Devine silk scarves she’s designed especially for us, with her Coney Island DJ partner Marie…

That’s Cleo on the left… and Marie in disguise!

Here’s Flamingo Amy and some other happy cider swilling customers enjoying their Friels!

Yum yum!

All the Tatty staff fell in love with this lady’s beautiful hairdo. We would have loved to see what Flamingo Amy could have done here!

Meanwhile, Rag & Bow‘s rails were being riffled through…

…while Hazel, Rag & Bow’s founder, was being busy getting her nails did by our nail artist Delia, aka Scratch Dollface. Check out Delia’s bling-tastic choice of name necklace… we love it! (Get your own made here.)

Here’s Hazel with her personalised Rag & Bow logo nails, made especially by Scratch Dollface for her!

The following day our Secret Dressing Room opened so Delia got busy creating fantastic Tatty Devine inspired designs on customers’ nails. First up was Lucy…

Alongside Delia the fabulous Flamingo Amy set about giving her customers that perfect vintage hairdo amongst the twinkly undergrowth!

Check out all their work on Facebook.

We love nail art – it’s colourful, graphic, and like a fresh sheet of perspex, nails are a great blank canvas for creativity. A good set of painted nails always go well with our jewellery. We blogged a while ago about Emily’s Nail Files, when Emily created a set of Tatty Devine inspired nails. Now we want to introduce you to another new nail girl on the block, Scratch Dollface, who is taking up residence in our Covent Garden store for London Fashion Week. It’s all part of our Secret Vintage Dressing Room.

Scratch Dollface’s real name is Delia. She first got in touch with us on Twitter, then sent us this cute set of Tatty Devine nails:

These are actually pretty tame, though, compared to some of her commissions, which span everything from My Little Pony to ‘boyfriend’ photo nails:

We had to know more about this nail art chameleon. When we meet her, her nails are a simple, nude peach with slivers of black on the tips. For off duty nails, they’re pretty hot.

Hi Delia. Where are you from and how old are you? (If you don’t mind us asking.)

I’m 28 and I’m from Stratford-upon-Avon. Me and my mum always joke that I’m from Shakespeare country, but my family’s Irish so I’ve got the gift of the gab.

How did you get into doing nails?

I’ve always done my own nails and make up with friends. It’s fun for parties. Every Saturday we used to spend our pocket money on nail polish. I was bored with what was out there for nails, though, and I started looking at my clothes and jewellery and experimenting. I researched Japanese nail art. Among my friends, when it came to nails I’d always be first to try something out. I’m brave. I try new things and I don’t care. But I won’t do something for the sake of being wacky. I’ll only do it if I believe it has artistic value. If I was a guy I would definitely be a drag queen. I’m really in love with make up.

How did you step it up a level?

Friends always asked me to do their nails. So many times they said ‘you should do this as a job’. I started doing personal appointments making custom nails, and now I also spend my summer holidays doing nails at the Peaches & Cream salon in Liverpool.

What’s your nail art style?

It’s retro, a bit 80s, a bit nostalgic. Kind of like Tatty Devine! I like things that remind me of childhood. I’ve even been told that my work is too tacky and that nobody would be interested in it – but to those people I say: suck my Swarovski-encrusted toenail! If someone says my work is too tacky I don’t take it as an insult, I’m just glad not to be boring. There’s a place for everything. I can do plain nails, but I also like to express myself. If someone requested a French manicure from me, I’d recommend they go to a nail shop. For a simple French manicure, I always go to a Vietnamese shop. There’s one on every corner, and they do such a good job.

What are your influences?

I love Basso and Brooke, Jeremy Scott, and Tatty Devine. They’re all doing stuff with colour and imagery. That’s where I get my influences, and from 80s music and toys. I love plastics. Plastic is my favourite thing in the world. And then I’ll be influenced by random things like Del Boy’s curtains on Only Fools and Horses. Things that make other people cringe, I love.

What kind of techniques do you like to use?

I’ve developed my own special technique for putting photos on nails. I love piling it up Japanese style, too, with nail wraps, varnish, stickers, rhinestones, 3D shapes and photos. I like using things that aren’t necessarily made for nails. I like writing words on nails, too. You can write anything, and it’s not as permanent as a tattoo. If I find a nice colour, I’ll try it out. I love the colours being sold in H+M and American Apparel. They know the colour trends.

Do you have a day job?

Yes, I’m a high school teacher. I teach Fashion and Textiles to teenagers, so I’m constantly looking at fashion. I’m surrounded by kids cussing each other out with ‘your mama’ jokes, which I end up using on nails [like the ones above]. I’ll write things like ‘SNM’ and ‘KMT’ on my nails, which stand for Say No More and Kiss My Teeth. I test ideas out on my nails by wearing them into school. The kids always say ‘I want you to do my nails’, but as a teacher you have to set professional boundaries. Nails is a cool thing to do in my spare time.

What’s your advice to up and coming nail artists, or anyone young and creative?

I would say don’t be afraid to experiment. Just build up your stuff, and try new things.

And what do you want to do next?

I want to do guys’ nails. Starting with Russell Brand.

Scratch Dollface will be at Tatty Devine Covent Garden this Saturday and Sunday. Book your appointment at the special price of £10 for 45 minutes by calling the store on 020 7836 6825. (And Katy Perry, we know you’re a big Tatty Devine fan. Any chance you could make an appointment for Russell this weekend?)

Find Delia on Twitter @ScratchDollface.

Is there nothing the Biscuiteers cannot bake? Take a look at the adorable pencil biscuits they created to accompany Letter Lounge’s amazing mail master class at Tatty Devine last night! In a world where words are exchanged through Facebook, Twitter and email, Letter Lounge aims to revive the lost art of letter writing with the help of tea, coffee and lots of treats. All our guests needed to bring was an address to send their work of art to and that was it – they were ready to start scribbling!

I’m Emily and this is my second blog as a press intern at Tatty Devine. Although I’m usually found in our Brick Lane shop, the prospect of making new pen pals was irresistible and so I hopped on the Tube to capture all the excitement over at our Covent Garden boutique. Claire from Letter Lounge commandeered the store, setting out stickers, felt tips, exclusive stationary and lots of sweets to aid the creative process (honestly…!):

Tatty Devine’s very own perspex pillar box sat waiting to receive finished letters:

Our first visitors take to the table:

I don’t know which is cuter – vintage queen Monique’s leaf-pattern skirt or the wedding bell letter she created for her friend:

Soon, we were overrun with the curious inhabitants of Covent Garden and dedicated Tatty Devine fans:

Here’s writer Jo and big specs enthusiast Frances with the fruits of their labour:

As Louise’s special letter-themed playlist pumped out The Marvellettes’ “Mr Postman” and Beastie Boys’ “An Open Letter to NYC”, we tried to think of more songs with a postal theme. What can you come up with?

We even spied a Tatty Devine Bunting Necklace on a budding wordsmith:

We love envelopes here at Tatty Devine – so much so we’ve even created an Envelope Necklace!

All too soon, it was time for last post at Covent Garden:

Once we started writing, we couldn’t stop – we saw declarations of love, long delayed ‘thank you’ notes to grandparents, letters of commiseration and lots of people inspired to bring letter writing back into their lives on a regular basis.

Thank you to the wonderful lady behind Letter Lounge, Claire Medcalf, for transforming Tatty Devine into a pop-up writing emporium and the delightful Biscuiteers for supplying us with a rainbow selection of treats. Join Letter Lounge’s pen and paper revolution now – it’s coming to a letter box near you…

Amelia Gregory of Amelia’s Magazine is on a book tour at the moment, promoting her excellent illustrated eco fashion book, Amelia’s Compendium of Fashion Illustration. When she asked if we’d like to host some tour dates, we immediately said ‘yes’. Together we decided to bookend her tour with two dates at Tatty Devine, with the opening night at our Covent Garden boutique and the closing night in Brick Lane (coming up on 7th June).

The Covent Garden date was really fun. We knew lots of illustrators would be coming so we decided to let everyone loose to draw on our windows. We were actually inspired to do this by the windows at Mimi Berry’s boutique on Cheshire Street, which our friend Julia regularly colours in. Julia was kind enough to give us her secret tips on the best pens to use. Luckily we already had a big stash of them from some jewellery colouring-in workshops we did last year, so we put out a tub of pens and let everyone get busy colouring in:

Tom Gyr did Amelia’s logo.

June Champoomidole (in the red) drew portraits of people. And here’s June’s self-portrait which appears in Amelia’s book:

Gemma Cook was the first illustrator to arrive, and drew a cake stand with cupcakes. Here she is working on a minty green heart:

We served up some lovely loose leaf teas from Lahloo Tea. We had Darjeeling and a beautiful English Peppermint.

We passed around the real cupcakes, too, from Cute As A Cupcake. They were mini sized with pink icing to match Amelia’s book. There was some discussion on how many mini cupcakes equal one big cupcake. Oh well, who cares, have five.

We were worried for a while that we wouldn’t have any juice, because Juiceology‘s courier hadn’t turned up during the afternoon. But the Juiceology people drove down to the shop to save the day! We have to say these were delicious – their flavour combinations got everyone talking. Apple, Lime & Mint was our favourite.

After that, everyone gathered inside to listen to Amelia’s talk:

Amelia’s talk was really inspiring. She spoke about setting up Amelia’s Magazine, which ran as a print magazine for ten perfect issues then switched to digital. She’s published two books of illustration, the first imagining a future full of renewable energy after she got involved in Climate Camp, and the new book on eco fashion because she wanted to explore fashion illustration (which she says isn’t being used much in the wider world at the moment). For both books she put out an open brief so that anyone could submit their work. Amelia talked about how the cover of her first book was by a 19-year-old who’d never even studied illustration.

She then talked about how she likes to create connections between people, and the ways that happens now through Facebook, Twitter, and new sites like Pinterest. She’s just been to Russia to talk to fashion designers there about using social media to get their work seen by the world. And she’s also just been to Poland Fashion Week for the first time.

She also talked honestly about the difficulties of self-publishing (all of Amelia’s books and magazine have been published by her). The support and good working relationship she has with her printer is important – and she talked about how important it is generally to get on with people!

After the talk it was time for people to get their books signed:

And everyone hung around to chat about illustration, jewellery, fashion and, oh, everything:

We passed around some Dr.Hauschka face masks. All the boys took them as well as the girls. Love it when boys do that.

And people showed off their work. We liked this shadow book by Linda Toigo:

Sad you missed it, or just want to do it all again? Amelia’s tour is continuing with these dates:

Tuesday 17th May at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh
Tuesday 24th May at Castor and Pollux in Brighton
Wednesday 25th May at Comma in Oxford
Thursday 26th May at Soma Gallery in Bristol
Tuesday 7th June at Tatty Devine Brick Lane (read more and book your place here)

And you can buy either of Amelia’s books on our website:

A big thank you to everybody who came, and to Amelia for creating such a wonderful evening. See you soon at Brick Lane!