Today is International Women’s Day (IWD), a global celebration of the social, political and economic achievements of women past, present and future, so it only seems right that Quiksilver Women mark this occasion too.
.
The first IWD was on the 19th March 1911 and was recognised in Denmark, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, where more than one million woman and men attended IWD rallies in support of women’s rights to work, vote and to end discrimination. Unfortunately, despite significant success surrounding equality in recent decades fair treatment is still an issue and in many countries woman do not have access to the same standard of healthcare and education as men do and often suffer violence against them.
.
Thankfully IWD is now an official holiday in countries such as Russia, China, Bulgaria and Mongolia where men honour the women in their lives with flowers and small gifts - much like we do for Mothers Day here in the UK. In addition, every year thousands of events are held the world over in celebration of IWD and the achievements of women including political rallies, craft markets, art projects, fashion parades and theatrical performances. The US have even declared the entire month of March ‘Women’s History Month.’

.
In support of woman worldwide Quiksilver Women Ellie Lawson, Leddra Chapman and I are sending our old bras to charity via the Breast Talk Bra Appeal. A variety of charities such as Oxfam then distribute unwanted bras to woman who really need them both here in the UK and in countries such as Africa, where good quality bras are highly sought after. Additionally, old bras can also be used to raise funds for breast cancer research.

Bras are an item we all too often take for granted, but there are many woman across the globe that don’t own a bra or cannot afford one. Through bra donations such as ours reusable bras will go towards helping homeless and underprivileged woman, where as damaged bras can be recycled into quilts.
.
Here in the UK over 70 per cent of woman are thought to be wearing the wrong size bra. I recently had my bust professionally measured and found I was far from wearing the correct size, but I’m glad I have somewhere to send all my old ones now. So why not get yourself fitted and rather than sending your old bras to landfill reduce waste and help support disadvantaged woman and the environment by sending your old bras to the Breast Talk Bra Appeal too!

Quiksilver encourages creative female talent and supports young artists on the road to success and we are very pleased to announce that our own Quiksilver Women Leddra Chapman, Ellie Lawson and Tennille Amor are sharing some tracks from their respective new albums with us.

.

With three creative and talented artists and three awesome albums to discover what are you waiting for? To download some tracks from our ambassadors, just go to http://music.quiksilver-women.com and suscribe. Thank you for your support and thank you Leddra, Ellie and Tennille for sharing your music with us!

LEDDRA CHAPMAN Photo: Timo Jarvinen

ELLIE LAWSON Photo: Timo Jarvinen

TENNILLE AMOR

Ellie’s creative single ‘Apple’ from her Independent album ‘Lost Songs’ with brilliant animation by Nacho Romero. Presented by Quiksilver Women. Lost Songs is available to buy on iTunes and CD Baby.

“This is a young woman plugged directly into the electric source of creativity. This music is so rich, so finely envisioned and realized, that you can fall into these tracks, and live in them for days at a time. In a world where a scarcity of substance prevails, this collection swims against the current of what’s conventional, packing in all the tunefulness, rhythmic and verbal wonder that tracks can hold. This is sensational.” Paul Zollo, Journalist and author of Songwriters on Songwriting.

Christmas shoppers in Bath (UK) got a shock last week when 3 Quiksilver store mannequins launched into two 30 minute sets under the name of Ellie Lawson and her merry band!! Oh what fun we had watching the little kids point and dance along! It was a very surreal experience playing music behind a sheet of glass and thinking that you could hear the applause as hands were moving, but actually not being able to hear a thing! Luckily we had monitors so we could hear our music and the big speakers were outside the shop!

The actor Nicolas Cage turned on the Christmas lights at the top of the hill and we were at the bottom of the hill so we managed to catch people on their way up and back down. Maybe they will ask us to turn the lights on one day- I will keep dreaming but until then we are back again in Bath this coming Saturday for the official Bath Quiksilver store opening! Yeay! Cant wait to get back in my glass box and make some more kids run in circles! So many people were filming us with their phones, but what do they do with it afterwards? Hopefully it will turn up on my youtube page at some point in the future! 

Thanks Carmen for having us at the shop, thank you Meena for arranging for us to play-twice, everyone that helped us choose clothes and sell CDs at the shop, my band Dave Harewood and Hils Granger, the sound guy Steve that lives on a boat in Bath and the artist Si Connerly for the pic’s and for the video footage that I will put up next week after Saturdays ‘Shop Window Show’ y’all! Love Ellie xxx

This is a fresh, innovative magazine with great photography and layout. It’s the ‘London Issue’ and you can view it and read it at: state of play magazine 04

Freckles is a new Paris based band created by Quiksilver woman Julie Boulanger and Michael Clement. Their sound is a mixture of acoustic and rhythmic folk melodies, with Julie’s husky voice transporting us to an inspired, bohemian new world. 
http://myspace.com/yeahfreckles
.
Ellie Lawson is an artist whose compelling voice and rich sonic landscape reflect a life journey of personal determination and self-discovery. Following the success of her debut album “The philosophy tree”, Ellie has just released independently her much-anticipated second CD “Lost songs”.

http://myspace.com/ellielawson

Hello, I played my biggest gig yet this weekend at Harvest on Jimmys farm in Suffolk. 10,000 people went down for the weekend at the sold out festival and me and my band opened the show for their first ever festival and was introduced by Jimmy himself.

Ellie, on stage, wearing the lovely Quiksilver Women Sweet Thing dress

For those of you that haven’t seen the TV series, Jimmy is a childhood friend of TV Legend chef Jamie Oliver who campaigns against processed food in schools and against unhealthy diets in the UK. Jimmy is a ‘rare breed’ pig farmer and ‘Jimmy Doherty’s Farming hero’s’ is a show on BBC 2.

Lots of lush animals down on the farm from the meditating mountain goats to cute pigs that look like little dogs with snouts and gorgeous satin coated cows. Feeling secretly proud to be a vegetarian as the animals looked too lovely to eat to me!!!

Ellie and Hils (Quiksilver Woment Little Wing tee)

Made lots of new friends and watched brilliant sets by indie folk cool cat Jose Gonzalez, the very beautiful and charismatic KT Tunstall, the legend and personal favourite of mine Badly Drawn Boy, other-worldly violin extaordinaire Seth Lake man (who I had never heard before but am now a big fan) and soul singer Sam Lewis, KT Tunstall’s guitarist as well as loads of other cool artists.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

I was able to hang out back stage and got a kiss and hug from the lovely KT, who is one of those women that is even more beautiful in real life and chatted with one of my hero’s Badly Drawn boy (who I thanked in the credits of my first album) whose an extremely sweet and creative guy dubbing me and Hils (my keys player) ‘chess board sisters’

Ellie wearing the Quiksilver Women Catacomb Tee and the Twisted Fate vest

.
Shot a video on Thursday for my song “Apple”.

It was great fun!! Started at 8am with Nicole and Lindsay doing my hair and make-up. Had GMTV on the TV in the backgroup whilst listening to the Kooks and Nicole was pointing to the presenters hair on the TV, which she had styled a few hours before mine!

.

The production team get busy

Turned up at the industrial location, which we had scouted a week before and the manager there said that we couldn’t shoot there. Have you heard of a ‘jobs worth’ well he had the T-shirt, cup and book. We had to find a new location on the fly, and my wonderful production team of 10 people walked all around the industrial estate and found some where even better! Hooray!! Big and eternal thanks

Band on a branch..

to the very creative and professional Kaspar, (director) Twan, (producer and editor) Christine (director of photography) and all the hard working crew on this shoot. Thank you to Marta and Julie for the wicked clothes and for helping making it happen. We shot lots of scenes in the industrial location- like inside a big container, walking by the barbed wire and then we moved to the park to shoot the end of the video with my band, Dave, Hils and Giles.

.

Giles, my bass player, travelled all the way from France to be in the video, but had forgotten something: His bass! Not a big deal for our creative and down too earth Giles. He went off to the garden centre and came back with a Skiffle bass, made from a metal bucket, a broomstick and some string!! Look closely at the pic! (click to enlarge)

Here’s a video of the making of Apple.

.

We have a brilliant animator called Nacho working on the video and he will be drawing all over the film. Very excited!! We are aiming for it to be finished by August 14th.

.

Ellie xxx

.

..to see more pics of the shoot click here to go to my myspace album.

.

...The start of my movie career... (East Village tee and Procession shrug)

Hear the track “apple” and more of my music at www.myspace.com/ellielawson xxx