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Pressdays: The Big You 4

I have a confession to make. The Big You, cherry on top of the blogger-event-cake, was not really a part of the most recent pressdays held by the Antwerpian PR agencies. TBY, as bloggers and fashion-lovers so lovingly abbreviate it, already took place in early October of this year. I lost the SD-card containing the photos. Yes, I lost two SD-cards in one weeks time. But can we forget about my carelessness, and instead focus on the amazing products I got to see, smell, taste and test? 

You might wonder “what is TBY?”. The Big You is a half-yearly public relations event hosted by UPR to introduce their clients to Belgian style and beauty bloggers. This year, the event took place in a unique loft not to far from where I live in the city. I arrived at the door on the same moment as Inez, which made entering the party a lot less awkward. It was my very first time attending, as I was always too late to apply for an open-invite for the previous editions. There was a bit of confusion at the door still, as my blog name was interpreted wrongly and therefore they couldn’t immediately find my name on the list.

 

When we entered, a kind young lady guided us to the first booth where we were united with our other blogger friends. The venue was wide, open and light and there were brand representatives waiting patiently at their booths to show us their latest items. There were SO many, that I can not discuss them all. If you want to read all about the brands, I suggest you visit the UPR website, and take a look at their list of clients for a short introduction. In this post today, I’d like to focus on all the things I saw that I (or the boyfriend, read on!) loved during this edition of TBY!

Zalando, a major European online-retailer, was the first to catch our attention. I have worked with them before, when they were only just launching their Belgian web shop and so I was very curious to see their newest collection. I spotted this cozy sweater and a lot of pattern mixing, but also the prettiest black booties. Inez clearly agreed that Zalando did a very good job as she got snappy happy trying to capture the entire collection.
Second halt was Pepe Jeans, a British fashion brand that celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2013. To celebrate this special number, they installed a photo booth and offered a lot of props for us to play with. Whoever came up with the best creation could also win a prize. Naomi went for a full-blown party make-overt and Marijke helped out with the Instagram pictures. Bloggers will be bloggers! When we were ready to leave their both, we received a print of our groups Instagram picture, which was such a sweet surprise! 
Pepe Jeans is a little more expensive, but when I graduated in June this year, my mom gifted me an amazing dress from them. You might remember my post about it?
Manicures and I, we’re not a good combo. Luckily for me, the people from ProNails were very helpful and had a truckload of nail polish remover ready in case of any accidents. I made an absolute mess of my nails, and when I tried to add some nail art, things only got worse. In the end, I choose for this bright pink color. I am not an expert on nail polishes, but the polish that I tried on dried within a few minutes and it only started to peel after about 5 days. My more expensive polishes at home do worse! To cheer me up about my miserable first attempt at nail art, I was gifted a goodiebag containing a grey nail polish and some try-at-home nail art stickers. If I dare to try again, I might be able to wear show off some fancy nail art to my friends on new years eve. If I dare… . 
From nails to bling bling. The Swarovski booth was pretty magical. There were pink decorations and royal blue goodiebags everywhere and we were allowed to try on the jewelry as much as we liked. The fact that you could win part of the collection made all of the attendees dream about how they would style the gorgeous statement jewels. Neither I or any of my friends eventually won, but it didn’t stop us from trying on, daydreaming about and Instagramming all the beautiful jewelry pieces we could find. The bracelet and necklace you see in the photos above happened to match with my fresh ProNails manicure! 
Before last, I present you my personal favorite booth of the day. L’Occitane, specialized in high-quality aromatic beauty products, presented their new autumn collection. I was immediately smitten by the amazing smell of the Fleur D’or and Acacia line. It smelled divine, I tell you. I loved the eau de toilette so much that it was the first thing I thought to put on my wishlist when my mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas. The booth was beautifully decorated by many little lights, which result in beautiful bokeh glitter in the product photos I made too. When we were ready to move to the next booth, the ladies of L’Occitane surprised us with a box full of testers from their summer collection. I’ve been occasionally using the creme and cleanser I received, and the body butter will come in handy as well in winter!
I had to go to work the day after The Big You, and therefor I couldn’t stay for long, but there was one more booth that I really wanted to see: the Illy coffee booth. I’m not much of a coffee drinker, but the boyfriend definitely is. He even bought his own latte machine, has a french press and a Bialetti. Being the coffee addict that he is, I knew I had to check out the latest of Illy so I could tell him all about it. For a few years now, Illy has worked with several artists to create the Illy Art Collection of which you can see the latest above. My boyfriend lives for his daily espresso, and when Illy gifted me with an entire tin of espresso coffee I knew someone that was going to be even more happy that I was with this gift. He only opened it yesterday, But I found this on my Facebook:
In the name of the boyfriend: Thank you Illy! 
I promised on Twitter yesterday that I had an XL blog post ready. I think this can count as XL, right? If you’ve made it all the way here: fear not. This really is the last I am going to say. A very big thank you to the UPR team for inviting me to this wonderful event and my best wishes to all the representatives that showed me around and let me get acquainted with so many new brands. I’ll leave you guys with a few more photos that I made that day to show just how much fun we all had!

Inez, Maya, Naomi, Monica, London & Paris, me and Marijke.

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Comments

  11. Jen Hsieh says

    Looks like an awesome event and I love how you recapped it by featuring your favorites. That pattern mixing by Zalando caught my eye – craving that sweater now! 🙂

    Reply

  12. Jen Hsieh says

    Looks like an awesome event and I love how you recapped it by featuring your favorites. That pattern mixing by Zalando caught my eye – craving that sweater now! 🙂

    Reply

  13. Lyddiegal says

    ohhh that looks like such a fun event! Its so great to mingle with other bloggers talk to brand reps in person. hope you got something great in your swag bag!

    Reply

  15. Lyddiegal says

    ohhh that looks like such a fun event! Its so great to mingle with other bloggers talk to brand reps in person. hope you got something great in your swag bag!

    Reply

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