Masato Fashion Show

As you are probably aware, we are organising an auction to raise money for the Alder Hey Imagine Appeal, to take place in October 2012. In order to collect items to sell I have been sending requests via twitter and have been overwhelmed by the response. We are in the process of setting up a website on which we have a page dedicated to all the generous businesses and individuals who have donated.

One person who got in touch was Mike who works with the fashion designer Masato. He had seen my tweets and said that Masato would like to donate one of his dresses for the auction. Needless to say I was totally gobsmacked and amazed. Mike said that my husband and I could attend their fashion show in Manchester to meet Masato and collect the dress. Well, I had never been to a fashion show before so was quite nervous, but yesterday we we went, we saw, we collected the dress and we had a lovely but emotional day.

We met Masato, Mike and some of their team at their hotel in the afternoon and despite being nervous, were put at ease by how lovely they were. Masato gave us this gorgeous dress and their photographer took some photos.

I am so excited that we are going to be able to auction it to raise money for Alder Hey -  it is a size 12 for those who may be interested!

We were also surprised by Helen and Joan, the lovely ladies from Latimer Couture jewellery (http://www.latimercouture.com/) . They explained that they would like to donate one of their beautiful necklaces to our auction - cue my first tears of the day. Unfortunately I don't think the photo below quite does justice to just how beautiful the necklace is, but hopefully I will be able to take some better ones before the auction.

We were then given VIP tickets to Masato's show which guaranteed us front row seats and a goodie bag. It was wonderful - the dresses were absolutely gorgeous and I would really recommend everyone to have a look at this wonderful designer's work (http://www.masato.co.uk/)

I am so grateful to Mike, Masato, Helen and Joan for their extremely generous donations to our auction. I am sure that they are going to raise a lot of money for the Alder Hey Imagine Appeal - a really wonderful charity. I would also like to thank them for being truly lovely to us and treating us to an amazing day out.


My husband and I arrived home that evening exhausted after an exciting but poignant day.It had been the first day since Erin was born that I got up, put makeup on and made an effort with my appearance. It had not felt right to do those things before, but yesterday it felt okay because it was all about Erin. All the fundraising we do is in her name, so going to Manchester and meeting these wonderful and generous people was for her. I hope I did her proud.

"How beautiful a day can be
When kindness touches it"
~ George Elliston