Crushing on...

...these rings from Thoraval.

So sweet! I adore that they can be worn individually, in pairs or threes, or the whole lot at once. And also that you could spread them across your fingers/hands (size permitting.) And of course the French expressions add a delightful touch of whimsy.

Sorry for the long breath between posts - trying to get a lot of things sorted at the moment. But I'll try and pick up the pace again.

Diane Von Furstenberg: Anissa dress



Image from Net-A-Porter

I love the colours of this dress - I think the gold and blue together look gorgeous - so elegant and regal. That deep blue and gold together always remind me of the ceiling of the lower chapel at La Sainte Chapelle on the Île de la Cité in Paris.

I'm not sure how flattering the dress would be in person - it looks like it moves beautifully, but the drop waist on a dress with so much volume would probably make all but the thinnest of girls look a little bit like they were wearing a very expensive sack. Or that they were trying to do a Beyoncé and hide a small-but-growing baby bump...

Diane Von Furstenberg has a store a couple of blocks away from my office - I think I'll make the most of the sunshine we're getting at the moment and wander down there one lunch and try the dress on for myself to see how it looks. If they have it in stock I will report back!

Engagement gift

One of my best friends got engaged over the weekend. It's so exciting! but it's also making me miss home because I can't be there to celebrate with her, chat about her wedding plans over coffee, look at dresses/venues/everything else in the same way that I could, and undoubtedly would, if I was at home.

As soon as she told me I knew I wanted to get her something - something to show I recognise how important an occasion this is, to show how thrilled I am for her, to show I am thinking of her. But an engagement present should be for the couple, not just one party, so a lot of the usual things I might have got her for something like her birthday were out the window - no jewellery, no accessories, no body products, no cosmetics. So that left me thinking, what on earth is a good present for two people to share? The two best things I came up with were things for the home or 'experiences' for the two of them to do together, and since the couple in question bought a home together last year the choice was easy! Something for the home it is.

I wanted something that referenced the occasion and their commitment without being sappy or saccharine. So, after a few hours of searching around I decided on these two prints from B&A Prints via Etsy:




Pictures from B&A Prints.

 
I think they'll look gorgeous framed and hung in their apartment! I keep imagining them hung on the wall of a big walk-in wardrobe - one of those ones that is large enough to be a room in its own right, where the man has one side and the woman has the other. My friend's house isn't quite big enough to have one of those, so I'm looking forward to seeing where they decide to hang them. The works will arrived unframed which will allow my friend to choose a mount and frame to suit her home (although I think they look great in black and white - with something this graphic it's probably best to stick with simple framing.) They could hang them together just the two of them, or maybe get a black and white photograph of them together framed in the same way and hang that in between them.

I have my fingers crossed she loves them! And that he does too.

Ahh Miss T, I'm so happy for you xx

Mondrian shoes

A few months ago I decided I needed to inject some colour into my wardrobe after realising how often I was wearing all black to work.

And then I saw these vintage beauties on Etsy - how could I resist?

Wearing them with my blue velvetey Jack Wills jeans.

That thing I'm holding is a gorgeous super colourful mask my friend picked up in Mexico. It's made from staw with the face part woven quite tightly to give structure and then whiskers and eyebrows coming out in all directions!





Bought from Decades Baltimore on Etsy.



Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty in London?

It sounds like Londoners will get to experience Savage Beauty, the recent Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute's retrospective of Alexander McQueen's work.

YAY!

Representative at McQueen released a statement saying  "Alexander McQueen appreciates the huge amount of interest the public has shown towards the Savage Beauty exhibition. We have been in discussion with a number of major venues in London for some time now however nothing has been finalised. Please be assured that an official announcement will be made the moment we confirm our plans for London."

It's a show that feels like it belongs to London - McQueen trained on Savile Row and studied at Central Saint Martins, lived, worked, and became a success in London and his brand is still based in London under the stewardship of an English designer, Sarah Burton.

The V&A would be a natural choice given their design focus and their fashion collection (already home to several McQueen pieces.) Perhaps they could host Savage Beauty to coincide with the reopening of their renovated fashion rooms in Spring 2012? Or in 2013 to celebrate 20 years of the Alexander McQueen brand? Somerset House would also be a good choice - it's the home of London Fashion Week and a beautiful space and has successfully hosted fashion exhibitions in the past.

The show was curated especially for the Met, but I don't see that being a problem in bringing it to London - every travelling exhibition has to be tailored to its new home, that's part of the job of a curator at an institution which takes travelling shows.

Fingers crossed!

If you're in London and would love to see the exhibition there are several online petitions you can sign.

Alexander McQueen: Spring 2011 Ready-To-Wear

I just clicked through the style.com slideshow of the Alexander McQueen Spring 2011 Ready-To-Wear collection and, wow.

Here are some of my favourite looks:

Source: style.com

This is the third of three white looks that opened the show. An incredibly powerful way to open a show both because you need to look harder and more closely to pick out all the details on monochrome clothes (in particular black clothes or white clothes), and also because it symbolically conveys the idea that each show/season starts off with a tabula rasa that ideas are then built from. There are so many gorgeous details in this look - the slight opening at the shoulder which pulls the look back from approaching severe and masculine, the waving fabric on the lower portion skirt (don'tcha think it looks super fun to walk in? Swish! Swish!)

My absolute favourite part is the lace at the neck. It's so fine that it's hard to see where the fabric ends and skin begins. This delicacy makes it look organic and somehow simultaneously beautiful, like the model has a gorgeous moss or fern growing up her body, and threatening, like there's a vine encasing her, encircling her neck and creeping towards her face. A beautiful take from Sarah Burton on the play between life and death that McQueen was so famous for. A Savage Beauty indeed!

 

Source: style.com

I'm a fan of high necks with no sleeves - it makes an elongated and elegant shape. This has taken that idea further - the long skirt really pulls the eye up and down the body, emphasising height. The pleating on the chest, the drips of colour near the hem and the wide belt stop the dress looking like its someone wearing a bed sheet or dressed as a column. The belt itself is also gorgeous - it looks almost like moss, or copper developing its green patina. And the matching shoes are just gorgeous.



   Source: style.com  , source: style.com  

 

  



Source: style.com

This is exactly how I imagine Persephone to look in spring and summer. I love how the detailing at the bust is so fine that it looks like the dress is growing up her body.

Source: style.com

 I have no idea how so many of these pieces look like they've grown on the model. I'd love to see this one in person...are the black bits sewn onto fabric that was the exact shade of the models skin? Or are they mounted onto something sheer. If the latter, how do you avoid an awkward wardrobe malfunction if you turn to fast or move your arms to vigorously (or, for that matter, walk to stridently)?

Source: style.com

I bet that when this walked down the runway the movement of the feathers on the skirt looked just like the white crest of a crashing wave, or the white foam of water being pushed in and sucked back around rocks. What a beautiful contrast with the stiffer feathers of the waist, shoulders and neck. Almost like a water bird, or perhaps some flotsam bobbing on top of frenetic white water. I love this shoe choice with the dress too - a less solid shoe would've looked strange with the mullet hem of the dress and showing more leg would have drawn the eye down the body of the model, away from the details on the neck and shoulders. The introduction of any new colour to the ensemble (even nude) would also have proved a distraction.

Whitewash

Rihanna is on the cover of the November issue of U.K. Vogue:

But it kinda looks like they photoshopped her skin lighter? For comparison, here's a picture from her website.

Looking for...breton stripes

For the past few days I've been on the look out for a long sleeved Breton striped top. Why? I'm heading to Paris soon (and I hope the current blast of lovely warm, sunny weather holds out until I get there!) and I'm imagining myself walking around in demin shorts, a long sleeved black and white (or possibly navy and white) Breton striped top, a pair of black sandals and maybe a scarf and a blazer when it gets cooler in the evening. So Frenchy, so chic and I own it all - except the striped top.


Luckily they aren't hard to find -

Zara T-Shirt with buttons on shoulders, £15.99

Reiss Nopi fluffy crew knit, £89 - I see 'fluffy' but I read 'fluff all over my other clothes'. Sorry Reiss. 

Aubin & Wills Thornville striped cotton top, £49

Zara Organic cotton t-shirt, £9.99 - also comes in a cute navy/white version

Bird by Juicy Couture Striped wool-jersey top, £175

YMC stripe top, £85 - I don't like this top with those trousers. At all.

Not surprising that there are so many out there - it's such a classic and simple look that it has become a classic. I ended up going for the Zara one with shoulder buttons (top image.) I was tempted by the Aubin & Wills one - I like the colour and the loose fit and I have a t-shirt of theirs that I adore and wear a lot because it comfortable and made well from good quality fabric. But the Zara one is one third of the price which helped me make up my mind. I'm still not sure if I should've gone for the organic Zara shirt, but I figure if I don't love the one I went for when it arrives (I bought online, and my swag should arrive tomorrow) I can pop instore and exchange it. So now when I get to Paris I can channel style icons like:

Coco Chanel

Audrey Hepburn



 Pablo Picasso

Audrey Tautou (as Chanel in Coco Avec Chanel)

Andy Warhol

Which is all pretty damn exciting. I will post pictures.

à bientôt

Heavy rain

It absolutely poured raining yesterday evening, and the rain only started about 5 minutes before I needed to leave work.

The rain. Fierce!

I couldn't hang round the office for a bit longer to wait for it to rain itself out because I was meeting a friend for dinner followed by a screening of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy at The Phoenix Cinema.

To digress, one of my favourite things about London is that there's history bloody everywhere. The Phoenix is one of the U.K.'s oldest continuously running, purpose built cinemas, and the oldest cinema in London. It was built in 1910, but the company that had constructed it went bust before it was opened. It took until 1912 until it finally opened (as The East Finchley Picturedrome) and it has continued on: witnessing the change from silent to sound films and the emerging dominance of colour over black and white, remaining intact through The Blitz and itself having several name changes and alterations to its raison d'être. Its closest brush with closure was in the early '80's when permission was granted for the site it occupies to have an office block and two lock-up garages built on it. There was strong local opposition to this planand the work of neighbourhood interest groups and the Young Socialists to save The Phoenix culminated in the formation of The Phoenix Cinema Trust who bought the cinema and still run it today. I think it's so fantastic to have a local cinema run by a trust rather than a company. A trust can often have different obligations to its patrons and the community it operates in, and this is certainly the case for this trust, who have set themselves the following goals -

Phoenix Cinema Trust Mission Statement:

1. The Phoenix Cinema is an independent cinema which is uniquely operated by a charitable trust on behalf of the people of North London. The Phoenix Cinema Trust is committed to promoting film culture by developing a broad programme of quality films.

2. The Trust is committed to preserving the building as Britain’s longest operating purpose built cinema and to developing the Phoenix as a popular centre for moving images on film, video and new media into the 21st Century.

3. In addition the Trust seeks to use its resources for the benefit of a wider population by encouraging the greatest possible access to film related activities for our diverse local communities.

Also! The Phoenix is where the animated poster that is the video clip for the Scissor Sisters' I Don't Feel Like Dancin' was hung.

And this is what it looks like. (Image from here, copyright held by Will Martin.)

And, after that massive tangent, back to the rain. The day had started quite nicely and remained so for most of the day so I was completely unprepared for the heavy downpour of the afternoon. But - looking for an upside - if I was to be caught unprepared in a rainstorm just when I had to hurry from my office to the tube  on a day I was wearing ballet flats I'm so glad that the shoes I'd put on that morning were my Tod's! The pebbled sole is great for giving good grip in the rain and I'm sure saved me from falling on my ass in the street.

Wet ankles - not comfortable. ASOS trousers and Tod's ballet flats.

I adore these shoes. Once I'd broken them in (which took one or two wears) they were amazingly comfortable and the quality is amazing. I bought this pair in 2008 or 2009 and I still wear them several times a week and hope to do so for another year or two (the sole under my heels is close to need replacing, but that is not surprising given how much use they've seen.)

Patent toes, leather body and suede ribbon across the foot. Gorgeous! (Photo: Saks Fith Avenue.)

seasons

Just a short post today - somehow the day completely got away from me and I didn't get a chance to sit down and write what I wanted to.

It was a beautiful autumn day today - a lovely temperature but cold enough that the air felt crisp when I left the house to go to work. I've never had a proper autumn before - at home summer lingers on much longer than it does here. There's a couple of weeks of crisp mornings, the leaves fall off the trees and suddenly it's winter. Autumn here is much more leisurely - the days are getting shorter and it's getting colder but it's all happening quite slowly, However, as much as I'm enjoying it I am scared that about winter. I really feel the cold - I guess a combination of poor circulation and being quite thin I guess - plus I don't really have any experience in layering. I've been scouring the shops to try and find things that look warm, comfortable and stylish. I'll share what I've found soon, and let you know how it holds up. But in the meantime I'm going to try and enjoy autumn while it lasts.

Inaugural Address

I'm trying to travel as much as my limited budget and limited time allow me. Fabulous adventures should be shared - or at least, I should document them more if only for future-me to reminisce over.

I moved from a warm climate to a cold(er) one and I'm struggling with layering, despite having been here for the last winter. I looked bulky, felt uncomfortable and on top of that I was still cold fairly often. But this coming winter will be different! Well put together winter outfits can look so elegant and that's totes going to be me this time around - I hope. I will document my attempts, so even if it doesn't come off maybe someone will get a laugh out of it.

I often come up with outfits that I think will look amazing but are unfortunately entirely made up of things I don't own and often haven't even seen in shops. I then spend inordinate amounts of time searching around to find out where I can buy the things to get said outfit.

I love looking at clothes (shoes, accessories, bags, jewellery) in general if I'm honest, and I think I'm wearing the patience of my friends and family thin by constantly sending them links of my newest clothes-crushes. So if I start posting some of the gorgeous things I find on my blog I can totally justify all that internet perving window-shopping, right? RIGHT?

I'm also in one of the coolest cities in the world. There is SO much going on and I don't think I'll be here forever so I want to get amongst it as much as I can.

So here it goes!

Genesis

So it turns out that I'm a lot worse at keeping my friends in the antipodes updated on what I'm doing than I thought I'd be. Also, recently a shadow of listlessness and lethargy has been creeping up on me so slowly that I didn't really notice it until a friend getting their dream job (straight out of university too, lucky thing) brought to the fore the disparity between how I wish things were and how they actually are. I know myself well enough to recognise I to get some momentum going after getting that jolt or I'll start drifting back into complacency. So I'm going to try and do this, and hope that the discipline of it will give me the structure and feeling of achievement I need to push myself to try and accomplish things in other areas. (Although of course it remains to be seen if I do have the discipline, energy and focus to keep it going.)


...

Trying not to think about how self indulgent and wankey this could end up...just going to take the plunge and see what happens.