Sticky Fingers

Chocolate and fashion; many a girls’ two favourite things and yet their relationship has always been an uneasy one. We are yet to meet a girl who can enjoy chocolate while wearing white without ending up with the evidence all down her front. And too much chocolate can mean that couture, the notoriously high maintenance sister of fashion, is out of the question all together. So as we head towards spring (hopefully) and white, floaty dresses, can chocolate and fashion co-exist happily together?

Being a huge fan of both, here at Maggie Semple we certainly hope so and it seems the fashion world is beginning to agree. Chocolate and fashion may have had their differences in the past but over the last few years they have been forging an uneasy truce. In October 2012, a chocolate fashion show took place in Paris in celebration of the 15^th World Chocolate Fair. The intricate and delicate outfits were designed by Eva Rachline and made with French chocolate maker Magnum.

China has been quick to follow in Paris’ cocoa footsteps with a fashion show opening the World Chocolate Wonderland in January this year. Designer Tina Fu admits that chocolate is not the easiest material to work with as there is always the danger of the design melting, dropping or breaking. Never one to miss out on a trend, the New York Chocolate Show, complete with annual edible fashion show, sent models down the catwalk in chocolate superhero costumes. However, it’s not just dresses that are getting the cocoa treatment, Choco Rico makes shoes, handbags and even hats out of delicious Belgian chocolate; even non-chocoholics will have to admit that chocolatier Frances Cooley’s creations look chic and good enough to eat.

Chocolate, delicious as it may be, is never going to provide the most practical of outfits and it is unlikely we are going to be donning a chocolate cocktail dress at our next event, but we are pleased to see a girl’s two great loves combined. Perhaps we need to stop thinking of chocolate as an enemy of fashion, after all if anyone points out the melted chocolate down the front of your dress you can give them your most withering look and say ‘it’s straight off the Paris catwalks, don’t you know’?

By Samantha Vandersteen