Hi everyone, how are you all!
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I have GREAT NEWS! I am officially releasing my new album TODAY!!! Its called Lost Songs. I have been writing away and have amassed a big collection of material. The songs on this CD are one’s that I have been lucky enough to record in various different studio’s in London and New York. I am now living back in London, England and I am releasing this album independently on my own label ‘Create Your Own Reality.’
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It feels fantastic and I am very proud of my songs! I hope you are excited and I will truly appreciate your support in buying the album and telling your friends about it!!!
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This album has songs produced by Jony Rockstar (Sugababes) Future Cut (Lily Allen) and Yoad Nevo (Jem) !
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The first stage of this album release is that the physical CD and downloads are available on CD Baby (just go to their website and type in my name or click on the link on my myspace page) I chose CD Baby because they are very artist friendly and have a very easy to use database.
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The next stage is that the album will be on itunes in about 2-3 weeks. Then I am hoping that I can distribute the album at Barnes and Noble and other retail outlets later in the year.
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I am so happy! This album took a long time to make and it feels a real achievement to finally put it out for you all.
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Check out my myspace page for new songs! (www.myspace.com/ellielawson )
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Lots of love,
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Ellie xxx

March. It is the month that officially kicks off the spring season - with loads of sunshine, flowers and a freshness in the air. Unfortunately, spring isn’t always what we dream, right when we dream it. There are days of beautiful warmth, but often days reminiscent of winter with all the rain, snow and cold we have grown to dread.

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The back and forth can cause a styling trauma! How do you bust out the new trends you are dying to wear when the weather outside demands you keep warm? Don’t shy away - you can pull it off. It is all about choosing spring pieces with layering in mind.

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Take out your new floral or nautical print dress and build on the warmth with tights and a classic trench. The accessories can add tons of springtime drama - toss on a statement necklace, stomp around in the latest platforms and grab your new bag. The weather may say “dark and gloomy” but you will be singing a different tune and before you know it - shedding the layers will be a necessity.

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Pull off this look with QSW’s Toulouse Trench Coat and Biscay Nautical Striped Dress!

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Blake Lively spotted in Quiksilver Women’s Irina dress from the Holiday ‘08 Collection!

Spring feelings in the Minnie Skinny and the Del Sol Tunic as well as in the La Luz Dress

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When my radio alarm clock went off last Friday it was one of these mornings on which I wanted to take the thing and throw it out of the window seeing the glass shatter in a thousand pieces. No, this was not because I needed to punish it for waking me up too early or any. I wasn’t tired anymore at all and I would have been ready to get up and start my day. The reason why the idea of smashing my bedroom window came up was only because of the host of the radio morning show that announced with a way too hyper-happy voice for 6.00am that it was March 20 which meant the first day of spring and therefore the day of lucky lovers only.
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Thanks! So should I then just stay in bed not being lucky enough to belong to the glorious group of lovers? Knowing this wasn’t an option since I had to follow my middle-class duty and go to work in order to prevent the Swiss economy yet from crashing, I decided to just change the radio channel and enjoy some minutes of relaxed snoozing before I had to leave my cosy bed and go out into the reality of amorously blessed first spring days. Finding the next radio frequency, I realized that the hyper-happy voiced show host from before apparently was right: This was not going to be my day. The radio channel I switched to wasn’t any better. On the contrary! The kind of voice a deaf diving in the Marianas Trench could tell that it belonged to some high-carat gay guy explained here that today birds would only sing for happy lovers that saw butterflies not only flying in the air but also felt them in their stomachs. And quietly adding only for me he seem to say some “And so how are you going to get over that day for lovers only, little shit-faced desperate single girl Ela… ha? Yeah see, go cry somewhere else!”
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No doubt that this was at a way too early hour for me to rise above being reminded of my unsatisfactory love life. So I did as the gay show host quietly told me and I went moping under my blanket and wallowed in self-pity instead of taking the early morning shower my stinky body would have been in way bigger need of. Spending some corny three-minute James Blunt ballade (not that I would care but it was played for lucky lovers only, of course) in my feather-wrapped cave, the show master that I only just hated ripped into my heart by saying singles should be aware that there was no better day to fall in love than the first day of spring. Yihaaaa, I shouted and jumped out of bed to get ready for my Frog Prince to meet, propose and marry me best of all again before even having arrived at work…
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Well, I have to disappoint you now a couple of days after this first day of spring. There was no Frog Prince on the way to work that was waiting for me to kiss him. I met neither my future husband nor the father of my children. Not even the guy I might have a crush on right now bothered to supply my stomach with some badly needed butterflies by giving me a shout or any. In short, my 2009’s first day of spring went down in history as a disappointment of a day at least as far as interpersonal relations are concerned. Instead of getting married on the way to work namely, I ended up being the uninvited spectator of a pre-marital quarrel of a young couple that Shakespeare and his dramatist friends would have taken as an inspiration for their pieces if they were still alive and writing. I for me took it as the well-needed proof of how great being single can be even on first days of spring when spring feelings seem to hit everyone else but you and some stupid couple that wasn’t even aware of its luck…
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So no chance those birds out there aren’t singing for me this spring! Spring is here and I am going to celebrate it no matter what with me, myself and I!
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triple-Ela

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PS: This is dedicated to all you single girls out there, enjoy spring!

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Celebrating spring triple figured as me in the Alhambra Dress, myself in the Valencia Dress and I in the Cordoba Top and the Lourdes Sailor Short

Me having a blast hosting this night - Photo: Helen Boast

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It’s not that we wouldn’t appreciate such things as International Women’s Day, but the thing with us Quiksilver Women is just that we are independent females and we don’t need others to set up occasions to celebrate ourselves. That’s why we European Quiksilver Ambassadors gathered up four days after 2009’s Internationel Women’s day to celebrate female creativity at its best! Cuz everyday is a Quiksilver women’s day!
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Photographer Bara Prasilova exhibiting her most recent work, our singers Anna Leddra Chapman, Ellie Lawson and Charlotte O’Connor performing their music, DJ Mahara McKay getting our booties shaking and me for once shit-talking instead of shit-typing, we rocked London’s Bush Hall last Thursday night, the 12th of March, and you better were there!

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Anna Leddra Chapman - Photo: Helen Boast

Ellie Lawson - Photo : Helen Boast

Charlotte O'Connor - Photo : Helen Boast

DJ Mahara McKay - Photo: Helen Boast

The Bush Hall on fire! Photo: Helen Boast

Bara Prasilova (left) with friend enjoying an exclusive exhibition of her photos - Photo: Helen Boast

Special thanks to everyone who made this event great and fun: Helen Boast (photographer), Big Balls team (Luke and Chris - Video makers), Sam Bush (co-organizer / Charlotte O’Connor’s manager), (David (Gibson) Tara and her team (hair and make-up), David (Gibson), Quiksilver team (Meena, Marta, Julie and everyone from Quiksilver UK), PR Balance.

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And a huge big up for the best Quiksilver Women and their teams: Anna Leddra Chapman, Ellie Lawson, Charlotte O’Connor, Mahara McKay, Bara Prasilova and her assistant Bara Berdyshova.

This week, the Quiksilver women will gather in London for a special event : a unique concert on Thursday 12th March.

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Everything started on the 20th of February, when our Quiksilver ambassadors, Anna Leddra Chapman, Ellie Lawson and Charlotte O’Connor gathered at the mythic Gibson Studio,  in London,  to record acoustic tracks.

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They recorded a song each and videos from this amazing day… Check out now how much they all had fun and how brilliant and talented these artists are !

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Quiksilver ambassadors at Gibson Studio

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Quiksilver ambassador Charlotte O’Connor

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Quiksilver ambassador Ellie Lawson

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Quiksilver ambassador Anna Leddra Chapman

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The Quiksilver women’s will host a unique evening celebrating female creativity next Thursday 12th March, at Bush Hall, London…

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* Introductions and MC by Ela - The Spring 09 face andthe host to Quiksilver women’s blog.

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* Discover the Eye of Bara Prasilova - Fashion / Art photographer from Prague

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* Live acoustic sets by Anna Leddra Chapman, Ellie Lawson, and breaking Columbia artist Charlotte O’Connor

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* Former Miss Switzerland and Quiksilver women’s internationally acclaimed DJ - Mahara McKay will bring the house down  to party through the night!

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"Please leave me (and my Quiksilver dress) alone for once !"...

It wasn’t meant to be one of those “leave-me-alone-nights”. Honestly. I didn’t plan on being a party pooper. I really wanted to dance and head bang and forget about how futile getting drunk actually is. But by the time we arrived at the club, my legs no longer felt like dancing, my head not like banging and my brain not like forgetting. I was not in the mood to get loose anymore. At the same time though, I didn’t want to disappoint my friend that had made my North American trip unforgettable so far and wanted me to go out that night so bad. That’s why I decided to just let time go by with quiet people watching and getting lost in my thoughts surrounded by drunken folks… Sweet inspiration, I thought to myself, and was excited for the party to start. What I didn’t think of though, was a phenomenon I first considered a cultural dissimilarity between Europe and the United States but then turned out to be a general social principal of western world.

I’m talking about the unspoken prohibition of pursuing my hobby named “quiet people watching in crowded places”. For some reason, society doesn’t seem to accept the fact that I (and I bet I’m not the only one out there) sometimes enjoy standing like a lame-ass loser at the edge of a dance floor and just watch instead of act. This one night at least people wouldn’t let me indulge my passion. I first blamed the North Americans’ tendency to chitchatting for it. Since I got here, the talk activity of North American citizen has been overtaxing my interpersonal communication skills by far. Everywhere I went so far, people wanted to hear my story (or mainly tell theirs). I saw it as a challenge in the beginning to try to keep up with the (no offence, dear North Americans, but most of the time) senseless drivel before the amusement turned annoyance because all I wanted once in a while was spending some quiet time during my travelling.

Exactly like that I felt this one night. Once I realized I wasn’t in party mood, I withdrew from the bar to some quiet edge in the club wherefrom I installed myself to watch people and get lost in my thoughts. 45 seconds later, the first drunken maniac of the type I wanted to avoid talking to staggered towards me asking if I wanted to join him on the dance floor. A rather easy candidate to get rid of only by directing his attention on the next hot blonde, the second destroyer of my quiet wonderland was way more persistent. It was a young and – surprise – 100% European bred German girl that obviously felt the call to save lonely hearts from social alienation. That’s when I realized I wasn’t dealing with a cultural difference only. There was no way this self-declared German psychiatrist would accept that I chose to sit alone simply because I wanted to be alone. And she obviously knew right from wrong better than I did and just like this she explained harshly that only losers or egocentrics would stand on their own like I did. Bang!

Losers or egocentrics? Her words reverberated in my head and the stigma she had just engraved on my forehead started burning. I spent the night away thinking of what I would rather be, a loser or an egocentric. I would always fall for people watching which consequently seemed to mean that I have to get used to being considered either arrogant or psychologically endangered. Well, and if I am now almost about to become a proud egocentric lame-ass loser, does that make me a bad person?

I don’t know if I want an answer on this one… But lets just say it’s okay to be quiet once in a while, okay?

Lame-ass Ela

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It was a flurry of creativity, bags and boxes overflowing with favorite accessories from each girl’s own collection, a photographer catching poses and smiles, and a shag rug that invited everyone to sit around and gab in between bites of deliciously catered grub. This was the insider’s view of QSW’s “it girl” photo shoot.

Take a peek at some of the candid moments.

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The calendar may not officially say that spring is here, but along the Southern Californian coast – you would swear spring has landed. Layers are being shed, bright colors, florals and nautical stripes are popping up and free-spirited women everywhere are embracing a fresh new wardrobe.

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Introducing our new spring line and showcasing the variety of women who embody the creative, independent spirit of QSW, are the “It Girls” of Southern California. These “It Girls” are currently setting the trends and capturing the attention of women around the globe with their sense of style and signature look. Who are these captivating women? They are the fashion bloggers making waves in the fashion industry and inspiring thousands.

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We invited these “It Girls” to the QSW hub, rolled in racks of spring looks and set them free to do what they do best – create expressions of their style.
The results were jaw-dropping! Check out what makes them QSW’s “It Girls”.

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KARLA

Karla (Karla’s Closet) describes her style as “feminine meets masculine”. She likes to keep things simple and statement, choosing a few striking pieces and staying away from loads of layers and accessories.

Using QSW she stayed true to herself choosing the twiggy-inspired Valencia dress mixing it with tough and trodden high-heeled rain boots. So very Karla!

Being surrounded by all the spring madness, Karla announced she couldn’t wait to wear anything and everything in pale peach.

She says her secret to style is the classic saying, “It’s always better to be overdressed, than underdressed”!

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TAGHRID

Taghrid (Taghrid: A Lookbook) describes her style as “girly with a twist”. She loves adding prissy elements like over-exaggerated bows, flowers and ruffles while at the same time keeping things hippie and happy.

Using QSW she stayed true to herself choosing to add her twisted girliness to the Cordoba tunic by pinning in a flower, wearing quirky colorful sandals and donning Lennon-style sunglasses.

All the talk of spring and Taghrid declared she was looking forward to wearing bows, wooden platforms and the color lilac.

She says her secret to style is “having fun with it, and dressing for me and no one else”.

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KRYSTAL

Krystal (What is Reality Anyway) describes her style as, “’channeling Anita Pallenberg in the movie ‘Performance’”. She effervesces 70’s glamour, often with touches of animal prints, fur trims and flowing sleeves.

Using QSW she stayed true to herself glamourizing the nautical print San Sebastian dress with gold studded booties and a vintage fur collar.

The sun soaked day brought on talks of favorite springtime runway looks, Krystal gushed of her love for Balmain’s rocker girl fabulousness.

She says her secret to style is, “not being intimidated by social consciousness”

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RACHEL

Rachel (That’s Chic) describes her style as, “eclectic and california comfort”. She isn’t afraid to blend any and every look – whatever her mood demands.

Using QSW she stayed true to herself combing the relaxed and cool Cordoba dress with a dark and striking waist belt, all layered over a body conscious leotard and tossing on unexpected schoolgirl glasses.

With all the springtime conversations, Rachel said she can’t wait to wear the expanding trend of boyfriend jeans – she recently scored the perfect pair!

She says her secret to style is, “just wearing what I want, and not letting others dictate”.

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HANNAH

Hannah (Hannah and Landon) describes her style as, “vintage-inspired - anything from 1930 to 1994”. Her love for vintage knows no bounds, and she stirs looks together any era that suits her fancy.

Using QSW she stayed true to herself incorporating the eye-popping yellow Valencia dress, prim little cocktail hat, and surprisingly added hues of orange accessories.

The luxury of spring had Hannah talking of her anticipation to wear all things silk.

She says her secret to style is, “standing by Coco Chanel when she said, ‘Take one thing off before you leave’”.

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BETH

Beth (The Vintage Society) describes her style as, “a mix of 70’s prepster and bohemian glamour”. She flip flops between classic pieces with glamourous flare and free-flowing bohemian looks.

Using QSW she stayed true to herself pairing the classic Toulouse trench coat with two striped pieces - the Monaco tee and a body concisous skirt. All this twisted together with bohemian-inspired accessories.

Breathing in the winds of spring, Beth let on that she is looking forward to mixing sequins into her everyday look.

She says her secret to style is, “discovering your own signature look - researching, studying, compiling and spending time with it. Then using that direction to dictate everything stylish in your life”.