Two Thursday's in a row, two wonderful days out! Sinéad and I attended both Ladies Day at the Galway Races and Ladies Day at the Dublin Horse show in this past week or so. Both days were thoroughly enjoyable, and if you ever get the chance to attend either day I would highly recommend it.
Let's start with Galway, which took place on Thursday July 31st. We attended with our friend Leanne and had the most amazing day- honestly, we met so many lovely people and found the atmosphere infectious. We had spent months thinking about and planning our outfits and it was great to see everything come together so nicely (if I do say so myself!).
We started the day with a visit to our friend Robin (jewelstuddedgrunge.blogspot.com) to get our makeup done. To my knowledge, Robin doesn't have any makeup training, but she's awesome- she has quite a natural talent and a passion for makeup artistry, and it's always nice to feel pampered. We paid her in croissants and coffee & she did a great job- it was a long day & we hardly had to touch up at all! Apparently we can thank MAC Studio Finish foundation for that (we were both so impressed with it we invested in some!).
We were aiming to be sensible and be at Ballybrit for Best Dressed judging at 12... but that didn't happen. You see, to be considered for Best Dressed Lady, you just sort of have to hang out near the VIP tent and wait to be chosen. Everyone checks each other out, random people take your photo without asking- it's all a bit weird to be honest! Anyway we made it out there for 1:15 or so, and didn't spot a single judge which was disappointing- it would seem judging was all over quite early. But while we were mingling we chatted to some lovely and well, quite complimentary people!
First we met Ellen from Fab Fillies (www.fabfillies.com) based in cork- she loved our outfits and I felt very proud that she really loved the hats I made us. She took these pictures of us for her Twitter/Facebook:
Next we were talking to stylist Fiona Hayes (www.fhstyle.ie) who was writing a blog post about maternity style. She was super nice to chat to, and also pregnant herself. She was impressed with the colours I went for & that even though I am pregnant, I didn't go for the wallflower look (that certainly wouldn't be me!!). You can read her blog post here: http://www.fhstyle.ie/2014/08/nothing-knocked-up-about-the-style-at-the-galway-races/
First we met Ellen from Fab Fillies (www.fabfillies.com) based in cork- she loved our outfits and I felt very proud that she really loved the hats I made us. She took these pictures of us for her Twitter/Facebook:
Next we were talking to stylist Fiona Hayes (www.fhstyle.ie) who was writing a blog post about maternity style. She was super nice to chat to, and also pregnant herself. She was impressed with the colours I went for & that even though I am pregnant, I didn't go for the wallflower look (that certainly wouldn't be me!!). You can read her blog post here: http://www.fhstyle.ie/2014/08/nothing-knocked-up-about-the-style-at-the-galway-races/
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| Myself and Fiona working our bumps in bright hues! |
While waiting to see who took out the Best Dressed awards, we also got talking to milliner David Ballantine and his lovely friends. Again they were all so complimentary and friendly, they really added to the atmosphere of the day. Born in New Zealand, raised in Australia and now based in Carrick-On-Shannon, he specialises in wire work and lace. His silk abaca creation certainly caught the attention of loads of photographers & his work currently features on the cover of Galway Now magazine.
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| Dramatic Silk Abaca creation my David Ballantine |
The winners were announced at around 3, with Helen Murphy from Cork taking the Best Dressed Lady crown, Paula Clancy from Galway winning best hat in an Edel Ramberg design, and Emer Nash from Limerick and taking home the 'Wear Irish' award. If I'm honest, I was quite underwhelmed by the best dressed lady. She looked beautiful, there's no denying that, and very elegant, but I personally feel she lacked that extra something- the X-factor if you will. But look, she was a completely inoffensive winner, and I have met quite a few people who absolutely loved her look! To each their own and all that...
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| L-R: Best Hat Paula Clancy, Best Dressed Helen Murphy and Wear Irish Emer Nash. |
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| Best Dressed Lady Helen Murphy. |
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| Stylist Lisa Fitzpatrick (centre) was the main judge on the day. Enough said? |
After the winners were announced, we ventured off to have a bet & eat some pizza, but found the crowd to be a little young & rowdy for us- so retreated back to the champagne tent shortly after. It was still quite busy there, even after the last race, but a welcome retreat from drunk teenagers in bodycon dresses and too high heels. After consuming over-priced drinks in the tent, we headed to The G Hotel for their annual best hat competition. I have always wanted to go to the event, and this year I finally made it! And god was it worth it! Loads more lovely people to chat to, great music, and of course, the best hat competition. Check out the pictures below (courtesy of @theghotel on twitter) of ourselves and others in attendance- the style was, well, fabulous!
We mingled in the crowd for a while, chatting and drinking lovely wine, cocktails and...sparkling water, while the judges searched for their 'Best Hat' finalists. We were absolutely thrilled and proud when Sinéad was selected! Don't we look happy?!
I guess you could say we were quietly confident. If the vibe from the room was anything to go by, people loved her hat! But I know from experience that doesn't necessarily mean anything to the judges, so we definitely weren't expecting a win. You can see from all the pictures of those in attendance that there were so many beautiful hats, on so many beautiful people! All of the finalists were called to introduce themselves and explain who their hat was by. I don't know exactly how many people were chosen but we guessed at least 30. Allow the following photographs to set the scene...
I tried to get a photo but this is as close as I could get...
I'm not gonna lie, after all of this, I was pretty damn tired. It had been a very long day! But we had to celebrate didn't we? So the girls got some champers and I played pretend with more sparkling water! We let our hair down by taking our hats off and relaxed on one of the beautiful couches at the hotel. We were just so excited and I couldn't bring myself to call it a night too early! To say I was proud would be an understatement and I am just so thankful to Sinead for doing my design justice- the effort she put into her outfit, her poise and her general attitude surely helped us get the win, so I think we're going to share that winning hat, fair and square!
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| Celebratory champers! |
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| The prize! |
Ok, so I know this post is getting pretty long now, so I will keep the details of the Horse Show to a minimum! Basically we decided to go at the last minute- we caught the bug in Galway and decided to go and play with the big kids in Dublin. We wore the exact same outfits so we didn't have to prepare too much and we did our own makeup this time, for which we were both very proud of ourselves!
The day itself was much more organised than in Galway, although we were struck by just how segregated the 'horse' people were from the 'ladies day' people. To get to the Blossom Hill stage where they were doing the judging, we had to walk through a section of stalls full of horse merchandise. We absolutely stood out like sore thumbs. It was insane! Then we crossed some kind of threshold and all of a sudden, we were home!
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| I try to blend in with the horsey people. Despite similar hair, they weren't buying it. |
When we got there we were directed to sign in and line up to get our picture taken. Our pictures were printed and attached to our sign up sheets and we joined another queue. It turns out, the queue lead to the stage, where judges Brendan Courtney and Angela Scanlon were interviewing entrants...every, single, entrant. All 625 of us. Personally I think that's a little nuts, for everyone involved- especially the two of them! Anyway, we took our turns on stage, had our photos taken a bunch of times, got interviewed for SHEmazing TV and RTE ten, and again, chatted to loads of lovely people. Plus, the people watching was EPIC!
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| Sinead being interviewed for RTE ten... |
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| ...and being interviewed for SHEmazing TV. |
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| My interview with SHEmazing TV |
Unfortunately we were in a bit of a hurry to get back to Galway, but we hung around long enough see who had been selected as finalists. While I guess we were a little disappointed that we hadn't made the cut, we definitely weren't deflated. As in Galway, random people kept coming up to us just to tell us how nice we looked, and we thoroughly enjoyed the people watching! Here are the winners though, in all of the categories:
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| Carol Kennelly: Best Dressed Lady. Carol is a well-known milliner from Tralee, and a veteran of the Ladies Day Circuit. Basically, Carol is super glam and knows exactly what she is doing so its not surprising she took the title on the day. |
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| Aoibheen McGonagle: Most Colourful Outfit. |
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| Belle Phipps (is that really her name? is she from 'Made in Chelsea'?!): Most Creative Hat |
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| Danielle Gingell: Elegance is an Attitude. According to news articles, this lady is from Co. Mayo. I heard her speak and she sounded like an English Marilyn Monroe, not a bogger. I imagine that's obvious by looking at her. |
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| Lisa Regan: Highly Commended Outfit |
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| Maurice Keough: Best Dressed Man. The prize for Best Dressed man was worth like €5000, so Sinead and I are thinking we can convince Fergal and John to enter next year. We figure they can just pretend they are going to a fancy dress party that makes fun of posh people. |
- Emily x
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