Introducing Kyte, Designed by Carousel + Arriving Soon!

July 30, 2015

Designed in house by the team here at Carousel, a new vintage inspired range called “Kyte” is due to arrive at the beginning of September! We’re so excited to be able to share a little sneak peek with you today, as the first samples have just arrived at Carousel HQ. We couldn’t wait to try them out for size, and see how they fit and look on us.

1950s vintage style dress Kyte sample

The first thing we noticed about the Kyte dresses is how comfortable they are. Made from fabric with a little bit of stretch, that extra bit of give guarantees a great fit for everybody. That, combined with their simple yet structured classic shapes, makes them flattering on all of us who tried them on – and we all have a range of body shapes here at Carousel! Each sample we received was in a solid colour, which makes for versatile and easy styling. We can see ourselves wearing them on a night out with a statement necklace and heels. They will also be available in vivid and fun patterned versions, a great way to make a style statement!

60's style Kyte dress vintage sample

We are loving summertime, but these samples have us wishing for Autumn, when we can see the finished frocks, and get our hands on some gorgeous Kyte pieces all for ourselves!

fit and flare dress Kyte sample red

Kyte sample retro shift dress Jackie o

1940s style vintage dress black Kyte sample

Which shape are you loving so far? Since everything at Carousel is always designed with you in mind, do let us know what you think!

Carousel xox

Exciting Times as Circus visits Pure London!

February 10, 2015

Vintage Inspired Style at Pure London

We are just back from a whirlwind trip to the UK’s biggest and best fashion trade show Pure London. It has made us so excited for the year ahead! We traveled from Dublin to London to exhibit the Spring/Summer samples from our vintage inspired Circus range that you know and love. We also brought along our new leisurewear range Kyte, a laid back and casual line that you’ll be hearing more about very soon!

Circus Kyte exhibit at Pure London Trade Show

Circus is Growing!

We are always looking for ways to make the Circus range better for you. One of our goals of traveling to Pure London was to find other stockists for Circus, so that it is even easier for you to get your vintage inspired style fix. Thanks to our trip to Pure, traders in Belgium, Germany, Spain, Scotland and England will all now be stocking Circus! So keep an eye out for us in a town near you very soon!

Circus at Pure London Fashion Trade Show UK

Exciting collaborations!

We are also delighted to announce that we will be collaborating with one of our favorite online retailers Modcloth in the future. This will make it easier for our American customers to find their most adored Circus styles closer to home . Modcloth already stock some of our dresses, some of which are almost sold out they are so popular! We are greatly looking forward to seeing the results of this collaboration.

Circus Samples Spring Summer Pure London

As always, our main aim is to listen to and be influenced by the needs and wants of you, the customer. Expansion of Circus makes it possible to continue producing a vintage inspired range that does just that. This is exciting times for Circus, and we hope you will come along for the journey!

Carousel Christmas Elves & Rita Hayworth

December 4, 2014

It’s been a whole week since we last updated you of the goings-on in Carousel. and what a week it has been!

We had a fantastic 40%-off offer on for the weekend of Black Friday to Cyber Monday. You guys grabbed the chance to get yourselves a few Winter/Spring wardrobe additions and you certainly kept our CarousElves busy! We were up to our eyes with boxes, labels, tape and Pretty Pink Paper getting your purchases out a.s.a.p.

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Rails and Rails and Rails…

Boxes piled high!

Spring is getting closer & closer, faster and faster so we’re now finalising our Circus designs! This includes our ‘Everywoman’ Circus Rita blouse, inspired by Rita Hayworth, one of the original everywomen. It comes in a classic silhouette with 3 different print options- Bow, Floral or Bird. The magic of the Rita is that it can be formal or casual. Dress it down with jeans or dress it up tucked in to a pencil skirt.

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The Circus ‘Rita’ Blouse Inspiration Board

Until Tuesday, All the best, <3 Carousel

With Winter Weather Comes Great Fashion…

November 25, 2014

We’re really starting to feel the winter weather this week! Sure, it isn’t exactly fun to be standing at a bus stop shivering but there is one great thing about cold weather…the clothes! Knitted jumpers, creative layering, scarves in gorgeous colours & patterns, hats… we love it. We’ve seen a lot of folks putting ‘over the knee’ socks over tights, and long sleeves under shorter sleeves.

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Aisling modelling our NEW casual collection.

We’re working ‘layers’ in Carousel too. Just this week our Photographer, Lyndsey, did a photoshoot with our resident model, Aisling (above). We have a new range of casuals that were designed to be mix ‘n’ matched with each other. There are dresses, kimono tops, oversized pieces, and a whole host of other elements in the collection.

We’re working on choosing new fabrics for the Circus Nancy skirt too. We were originally inspired by the sixties for this design. Nancy Sinatra, Daisy flowers and the colours of lomography photography were our main inspirations. As you can see from our collage, below, it’s *very* 1960’s.

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The Circus Nancy Skirt, Inspiration Board

We’ll be back here with more updates on Friday. Until then, wrap up warm!

I <3 Carousel

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Carousel Goes Crazy for Christmas !

November 21, 2014

Who doesn’t love Audrey Hepburn?

She was intelligent, graceful, charming and the epitome of class. That’s the exact reason we named the Audrey dress after her!

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The Circus Audrey Swing dress, Inspiration Board

As well as a pleated skirt we gave it two very different punchy prints to make this Vintage-inspired beauty a more contemporary look. You can get our Circus Audrey dresses here: http://bit.ly/1t8Xv9P

In other news…Carousel’s gone Christmas Mad!! Ali put our in-store decorations up and we had the fabulous team at ‘Display Is What We do/Decorate 2 Celebrate‘ in to create our AMAZING windows! We’re so chuffed with how they turned out…thanks team!

Carousel’s Christmas Window Display!

We’ll be back here on Monday for more news and Christmas fun…

Until then, love Carousel xoxo

The Circus Vera dress from Carousel, Ideas and Inspiration - vintage - retro - fashion -style

Circus Design & Inspiration Ideas, Vera

November 17, 2014November 17, 2014

Wondering what the inspiration was behind the Circus Vera dress design? Well wonder no more….

Vera Ellen was a dancer starring in the likes of ‘White Christmas’ and ‘On the Town’. She danced with Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly,Danny Kaye and Donald O’Connor amongst others. She was graceful, vivacious and energetic and we think that sums up the Vera dress. Featuring 2 punchy patterns, one a bird design in an autumnal colour scheme and one a more Vintage-inspired navy & brown floaral pattern. The dance influence is in the pleats of the skirt creating a great little kick…very swishable 😉

Here’s the final design & inspiration for the Vera-

The Circus Vera dress from Carousel, Design and Inspiration Ideas

In other news our Design team have come back with loads of ideas and different fabric swatches for the next season! You helped to contribute to this process by choosing your favourite fabric patterns and colours via Twitter and Facebook. As you can see from the pictures below there are a lot of really different prints and patterns to choose from so it can be a tough job! We really can’t wait to show you our ideas for future designs. We know you’re going to love them.

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Our Design Team hard at work Finalising Designs and Fabrics

We will be back here in a few days with more news from Carousel Headquarters. In the meantime have you checked out our videos? We’re having a bit of fun talking about our Circus designs and showing you how to style yourself up! They are a work-in-progress but we’re learning quickly. Rome wasn’t built in a day and all that :D. Check them out here: Carousel on Youtube

Talk soon! Carousel, xoxo

‘Circus’ Design & Inspiration Ideas, 6

November 14, 2014November 14, 2014

In the last blog post I mentioned that our design team have headed off on a trip to fetch fabric.
Here’s a behind the scenes look at how they’re getting on…

Circus Brainstorming and Research

Circus Patterncutting

Even more brainstorming and research!

I also spoke about the Circus Peggy skirt in the last post and fabric choices we were looking at for Spring/Summer 2015. We want to let you in on what initially inspired this skirt.

Peggy Lee was our main influence because of her fun nature and the long,pleated skirts she often wore. To add even more femininity we used a bow print on one design and an abstract floral print for the other.

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Circus Inspiration for the Peggy skirt

That’s all for this week. We’ll be back next week with more news.

All the best, Carousel xoxo

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‘Circus’ Design & Inspiration Ideas, 5

November 10, 2014

Things are really kicking off here at Carousel as our Circus design team have headed to distant shores. As we speak they are sourcing all of our Spring/Summer 2015 fabrics…some of which you contributed to in your Twitter, Facebook and blog comments!

New Ideas for the Circus Peggy skirt Spring/Summer 2015

We’re working on the Circus design & inspiration ideas for the Circus Peggy skirt (above). We love this ‘Patriot Blue’ Pantone colour as an alternative to black and the daisy print is just darling.

We’ve got parcels going off all around the world today. Loving that people from Galway to Germany are wearing our designs. ther won’t be any mention of the ‘C’ word just yet but here’s a head’s up to prepare yourself for the seasonal rush. We stock a limited number of sizes and while we do replenish stock it’s safer to get in there while you’re thinking of it.

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Some of the packages ready to go to their new owners!

Lots of new Winter stock has arrived with more due tomorrow. We’re photographing it right now so it should be online by tomorrow.

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Shooting one of our gorgeous fur coats in the studio

We’ll be back here with more updates on Friday!

See you then, Carousel, xoxo

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‘Circus’ Design & Inspiration Ideas, 4

November 7, 2014

Another week in Carousel and more Circus design & inspiration ideas. We have our sketches, inspired by Vintage fashion, and now we’re choosing fabric for the charming Shirley blouse.

This has a cute Peter Pan collar and a box shape so we’ve taken advantage of that by covering it in a cute print. Here’s what we’re thinking in terms of pattern and colour scheme-

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New Ideas for Shirley Blouse Spring/Summer 2015

Meanwhile we were doing a photoshoot yesterday with Betty. We’re all about brightening up the dull weather with pops of bright colour!

Brightening up the streets outside the store!

The dress Betty is wearing here is the Circus Keyhole dress (available at http://bit.ly/1tPkXOj ) . We’ve just discovered how well this shade of blue goes with purple!!

And how cute is this bobble hat? <3

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Bobble Head Betty! click on the image for outfit details…

You can get the bobble Hat outfit details here: http://m2.ilovecarousel.com/get-the-look.html .

Enjoy your weekend! Love, Carousel. xoxo

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‘Circus’ Design & Inspiration Ideas, 3

November 4, 2014

We’ve been working away with new Circus designs & Vintage inspiration ideas. We’re so excited to hear that we have a delivery of new items coming in next week!!

It definitely reflects the direction we’re going in for Autumn/Winter 2014. Slightly darker colours that integrate well with your winter wardrobe but brightened up with cute prints like polka dots and air balloons.

Here’s three of those new dresses-

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New Circus Designs! Dots, Polka Dots, Air Balloon

We’re also choosing fabrics for the Spring/Summer Joan dress. Who doesn’t love florals and tiny polka dots? Kate Middleton certainly is, and if it’s good enough for a Duchess it’s good enough for us!

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Circus Design Inspiration: Fabric options for the Joan dress

Our window displays are becoming a thing of pride recently…Ali in the shop is our Window Display expert and she’s done a fantastic job.

Ali getting stuck in to our newest Carousel Window Display

We’re busy little bees at Carousel HQ so check back here on Saturday for another update!

Love, Carousel xoxo

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Vintage inspired, Irish owned & designed

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