Lessons in relocating

I've been awfully quiet on my blog lately. But there's good reason, honestly. There's something I have kept distinctly quiet about of late, and that is the fact that I have moved flat. Moving flat is such a massive pain in the behind that I have tried to ignore it entirely, to the point that I couldn't bring myself to write about it or acknowledge it on my facebook status, which all in all, is quite something. Also, I didn't want to jinx it. There was a part of me that thought as soon as I wrote about it and pressed send, it would all fall through. But now I have been in the flat for a whole week, the worst that can happen is that I press send and the roof literally falls through. Which, come to think about it, would actually be a lot worse.

But to hell with it. Me and my flatmate Christine are in our new flat, which is a lot less dank and damp than the last. That was part of the reason we decided to move, though mostly it was because the old place was also home to two other flatmates, who have moved back to Prague to plan their wedding and start a life together (we'll miss them). Oh, and the fact that we lived above what very well could be a crack house (complete with police raids) and living next to our next door neighbours was like being on the set of The Royal Family, with the kids passing more than a slight resemblance to Lauren from the Catherine Tate show.

The new flat is near lots of media types as well as City boys who probably do as many drugs as our old neighbours, just more discreetly. Also, I get to forsake the stress of the tubes in the morning as it's just a quick bus journey to work, though I know in reality this means that I will spend an extra ten minutes in bed every morning before making a frantic dash for the bus (do you remember, at school, that the people who lived the closest were always the latest?).

Anyway, this is what moving has taught me:
1) Spring clean, blitz clean, part clean...getting your flat ready for the dreaded inventory check is a minefield. Professional cleaners, you'd be surprised to hear, don't always know what degree of clean is necessary for end of tenancy. If confused, ask a responsible, neat freak adult (mums are great at this kind of thing) to draw up a 'clean checklist'. They know what constitutes really clean, as opposed to 'ah sure it looks fine to me' kinda clean, and tick your way through the list with any professional cleaner you might employ. And then cross your fingers and hope you get your deposit back.

3) You can never have enough coat hangers. Also, hang up everything within five minutes of moving in. Otherwise all your nice clothes will spend their time moving from bed to floor.

2) (And this is the most important one)
Do not transport your clothes in big bags. They'll rip and leave a trail of knickers down your new street, which is never a good thing.

oh mon amour...

Just a little sumthin' sumthin' I came across last week in Murcia, Spain. It might have been more appropriate if it had been in Spanish maybe, but you really can't beat the language of love for those romantic declarations of emotion.

The French: Oh mon amour, Je veux t'aimer nuit et jour...
The English translation: Oh my love, I want to love you night and day...

Cute eh?!

Clothes...

‘Clothes are not the clothes of the body but of the mind’

- James Laver, costume historian, 1949.

I'm a big jelly-tot

Don't you just love jellies? No, not jelly sweets (although they are also just delightful). I'm talking about jelly sandals. Just the sight of a pair of sweety-pink strappy jelly sandals in Topshop today had me drawing on fond childhood memories of wearing them in the sea to protect my delicate little toesies from sharp pebbles (thanks mum). Twenty years later, and my love for both their functionality and frivolity has not in the least bit abated.

"Jellies, just for kids" you say? Think again! In splashy hues and chic styles, these summertime favourites are approved for all ages. Whether I'll be stepping on pebbles or slick concrete pavements this summer, these sandals are ultra-wearable. Some might call it childhood regression, some might call it plain lunacy, but I really think I need a pair.

Denim- the dreadfully democratic fabric (but I love it)

It being summer, I’m attempting to make that difficult transition from biker jacket cover-up to a more summer appropriate look. With this in mind I recently purchased a vintage look, cropped denim jacket- perfectly ‘on-trend’ seeing as along with everything else eighties, the classic, worn in denim jacket is back with a bang this spring. Just as faded, ripped jeans lend a rebellious edge to statement jackets, I reckoned the retro denim jacket could be the perfect topper to my pretty summer dresses and to my muted coloured classics alike.

This morning the sun was shining, the breeze was warm, and I felt the time had come to don a suitably spring-time look. I reached for my denim jacket, and in an ode to summer, teamed it with classic cropped black trousers, and a silk look t-shirt - an easy, comfortable look I felt, perfect for my low-key bank holiday Monday errand running, especially with my trusty new Converses involved.

So this afternoon I strolled down to my local Borders, grabbed a stack of magazines and sat myself down in the Starbucks inside to get my credit-crunch friendly magazine fix. Happy days. But then I turned to my left. A middle-aged, overweight, balding man was wearing a denim jacket, and it wasn’t in an urban-chic kind of away. He had paired his denim jacket with grey polyester tracksuit bottoms, a white aertex t-shirt and a gold stud in his ear. This was a man who had just bought an ‘over eighteens’ DVD for his seven year old son. As far away from the pages of Vogue or Elle as you could ever get, this was not the kind of individual whose look or lifestyle I’d like to seek style inspiration from I’m afraid. I looked at his jacket. I looked at my jacket. Suddenly my denim didn’t feel so hot.

So here I am, questioning whether my denim jacket is indeed as great a purchase as I thought it was. I need new inspiration, I need to remind myself why I love my little denim jacket, why I opted for it this morning rather than my trusty leather biker jacket or my oversized grey blazer. And so I turn to Google Images, and attempt to placate myself with the fact that denim can and does look great, that my love for denim and my little denim jacket is not unfounded or foolish, and that despite this temporary upset, denim and I can continue to be friends. Two months ago when I was robbed of my phone and camera, before being followed and verbally abused by a drugged-up idiot on the street, I did the same thing- immediately I sought to remind myself why I love London, why I like people. I reminded myself of all the good times we had together, and rather than focus on the negative, I focused on the positive. I’m trying hard to do the same for my denim jacket.

In recent times it seems stars Chloe Sevigny and Kate Bosworth have dusted off their denim jackets and are wearing them to toughen up pretty summer dresses. Looks like Nicole Richie and Diane Kruger love them too.

Okay then little denim jacket, all is not lost.

French love and l'alcool

I came across this t-shirt from Cubist Literature while looking through some old posts on Perfectbound (really cute art and design blog) earlier today. I'm loving it!

The French: Moi, je veux te dire que je ne te quitterai jamais. Et puis, si tu es triste, je pourrais toujours te donner un peu d'alcool pour te rechauffer le couer. xo

Basically this means that "I'll be there for you always. And I'll get you drunk when you're sad."

How can you not love that??

I heart Mother Nature and am therefore celebrating Earth Day

To quote the wise words of Kermit the Frog, “it's not easy being green”. There comes a point when all this green living gets to be too much. Like, now designers are making green dresses out of organic cotton, and people look at me weird in Tesco when I dilly daly in my decision whether to buy locally sourced, free-range, organic, natural, sustainable, happy-lifed and, dare I say it, astronomically expensive, chicken for dinner, or opt for the cheaper variety (maybe I should flash them my student card). To be honest, it’s all a little confusing.

Thank goodness for Spa Ritual; they’re making it simple to live in line with Mother Nature. To offset my cheap-chicken eating ways, I’m going to attempt to make one element in my beauty routine a little greener, by swapping my regular nail polish for one that's truly chemical-free. SpaRitual's Nail Lacquer, in addition to being free of DBP, toluene and formaldehyde, the vegan polish (yes, you read that correctly) comes in a bottle made from reusable glass. Among the 72 shades of polish (none of which are actually green in colour, shame) I particularly like Strike A Pose, a cheerfully bright pink hue, perfect for my toes. My choice of earth-friendly nail polish is hardly the shopping equivalent of living off the grid, but hey, I like to think I’m saving one polar-bear at a time.

Topshop takes a bite of the Apple

Gotham's fashion lovers have been chomping at the bit for access to Topshop's trend-setting designs and European styling, and yesterday, the day both they and the British super-brand have been waiting for finally arrived.

The long awaited opening of Topshop New York yesterday was accompanied with a blast of red, white and blue confetti as Topshop owner Sir Philip Green and supermodel Kate Moss emerged from the £14m Manhattan flagship at 478 Broadway and Broome.

And the focus on 'all things-British' didn't stop there. Topshop New York’s windows have been designed by British illustrator Jo Ratcliffe, and feature iconography reflecting the two worlds of fashion and the British Aristocracy- displays feature punk-style Union Jack posters on which a black and white image of Kate Moss has been super imposed. Strong reference to the British nature of the brand is similarly carried into the interior with a store-high graphic in the escalator well including icons such as the London Eye, red buses and signs for Regent Street.

However, there were some minor, I would say inevitable, confusions. Bemused onlookers wondered what the cheerleader shouting “Kate” in a North London accent outside the Topshop New York store was saying, with one by-stander commenting “Do they mean ‘cut’ [the ribbon]?”

Some things just don’t translate!

It's Non-Uniform Day (Banker style)!

For those of you who only read Drapers or Vogue.com for the news, you might not know that Thursday is the start of the G20 Summit here in London, a yearly meeting between the world’s largest national economies to discuss an agenda that usually includes IMF reform and strategies to revive the global economy. Naturally, this attracts protesters of all kinds, which naturally makes the world’s bankers both in attendance and in the general vicinity a little nervous since most people blame them for the current global credit problems.

In anticipation, the Metropolitan police have advised bankers to dress down so they’re not as easily recognized. This is likely to present a sartorial challenge to those whose wardrobe skills usually involve deciding which grey suit to don each morning. And it is a conundrum that the police seem to be grossly unqualified in giving advice on. So far, City workers have simply been told to avoid suits and dress down in chinos and loafers. That's it.

Not only is the advice incomplete, it is possibly the worst wardrobe advice ever. Chinos and loafers simply reek of money and poshness. Bankers who choose this option might as well wear a T-shirt with the slogan "I spent my bonus on a yacht". Dressing in chinos and loafers all too readily bellows “banker trying to dress like a normal person” - kind of like when you see an Olsen trying to blend in behind her giant shades and venti latte that’s bigger than her forearm, or when a kid plays hide-and-seek in the middle of the room.

So I’m wondering –is it really that easy to spot an off-duty banker? What gives them away? The untucked Thomas Pink shirt over dry-cleaned jeans and never-before-used Nikes? The super gelled Ross Geller hair, like they’ve been swimming against the tide all morning? I don’t really know many bankers, so I’m curious - what exactly do they look like whilst they walk among us? Most importantly however, if chinos and loafers must be left out of the fashion equation, what should anxious bankers wear to dodge the rioters? Dilemma…

Some inspired style suggestions come from Imogen Fox of the Guardian:

“The best wardrobe disguise a banker can adopt on Tuesday is probably the Mark Ronson look, aka the ironic Hoxton suit. Ideally it should consist of a brilliantly boring cardigan, neatly buttoned and worn with a skinny-ish tie and narrow-fit trousers. All the better if you can accessorise with a pair of nerdy glasses. It’s a little bit Matthew Horne, and not especially on-trend, but it suggests that you shop at Topman, and not Thomas Pink.”

And who said non-uniform days were fun?!

Happy Summer!

Summer is finally here! I've been waiting. The clocks went forward an hour on Sunday, thereby heralding the official beginning of Summer. In the last forty-two hours of 'Summertime' however, I've been struck with many wardrobe related perplexities. Could I get away with wearing flip-flops to the corner shop without my feet becoming frosty? Should I really be wearing black opaque tights with dresses now that it's officially the Summer season? Should I save myself the bother of early morning decision making and just carry all weather defeating accessories with me (sunglasses, hat, scarf, umbrella) until the weather shows some sign of stability? And, crucially, has the time really come to embrace the pastel palette of Spring/Summer?

This morning I woke up to the sun beaming through my window, and it seemed I would be granted respite from the above questions, for the day at least. Relief.

But the sunshine and warmth was short-lived. This afternoon the skies darkened, the temperature dropped and I made the sad decision to close all windows in my flat. I started to doubt if Summer really was here at all. But just as the clouds began to gather and I sensed condensation in the air, a small Summer miracle occurred...

I heard the unmistakable musical sounds of an ice-cream van. Yes, they still exist. And this is what I heard from the vans loudspeaker:

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are grey
You'll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away"

How apt! Against the grey London skyline, the ice-cream van really was like a beacon of sugar-filled light. Ice cream, of course, makes everybody happy,and for today at least, the ice-cream van was my sunshine. But I'm still hoping it doesn't take our real sunshine away.

Oh Valentino...

"I am extremely happy to have quit from fashion ... all of the designers are doing the eighties. I hate the eighties. I did it, and I hate it. When I go to see my dresses of the eighties, I vomit."

The fabulous Valentino speaks candidly to nylonmag.com If any of us ever wondered how Valentino really felt about hanging up his needle and thread, I think we have our answer.

For the love of Chalayan

I love fashion. I love looking at fashion. I love considering what exactly ‘fashion’ is and I love even more learning about those who attempt to define it and create it. So when I heard that ‘From Fashion and Back’, the Hussein Chalayan retrospective currently showing in the Design Museum, promised to explore the extraordinary designer's work, naturally I got very excited.

Few designers have pushed the boundaries between fashion and art like Hussein Chalayan. His pioneering work is motivated by ideas not readily associated with fashion: architecture, philosophy, science and technology, cultural displacement and identity, genetics, anthropology and aerodynamics all inform and influence his work.
From invoking elements of architecture to installing lasers in dresses, no material is off limits to the Cypriot, who, in addition to helming his own label, is also the creative director of Puma.
Chalayan in particular has made his reputation by invigorating fashion with dazzling performance. His acclaimed runway shows function as performance pieces which allow him to express important concepts. It was part of his “After Words” collection in 2000, in which models donned chairs and tables, a nod, Chalayan says, to the plight of refugees who flee their homes during war, as happened to his own family before the partition of Cyprus in 1974. Then there was his “Readings” collection last summer, also exhibited in the Design Museum, in which the clothes used motorised lasers and crystals to dazzle the audience with artificial rays of sunshine. A comment on celebrity worship, if you’re interested.
His Spring/Summer 2009 show was equally emotionally and politically pertinent. The collection titled “Inertia” literally ended with a crash: the live smashing of dozens of wine glasses lined up along a pseudo-bar inset in the back of the set. While that happened, the stage was occupied by a circle of girls standing on a revolving platform, wearing molded-latex dresses that appeared to be frozen in motion. Each dress was hand-painted with images of crushed cars.

"It's about the speed in our lives and how it can only result in a crash," Chalayan explained, adding that the prints, which included number plates, car handles, and fenders, were "taken from pictures of car graves."

Some say that it is fashion's responsibility (if it's to remain at all relevant) to register events in the world at large. But it takes an incredible designer to probe the live anxieties of this scary moment and yet still come up with a wearable fashion collection. After seeing such a comprehensive, thought-provoking, inspiring and beautiful exhibition as this, it is clear to me at least, that person is Hussein Chalayan.

I'm getting my head around hats

Think you know all there is to know about hats? Well, I thought I did, but a recent trip to the V&A taught me otherwise and opened up a whole world of millinery and head-adornment that I felt it was only right to share...

'Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones' is a collaborative exhibition between the V&A and one of the fashion world's most prolific milliners, Stephen Jones. Stephen Jones's work is represented in the permanent collections of the Louvre (Paris), The Fashion Institute of Technology and the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (both New York), the Kyoto Costume Institute, and the Australian National Gallery (Canberra). According to the milliner himself, however, London is 'the hat capital of the world', and so it comes as no suprise that it is here, in the V&A in London, that hats are the focus of a whole exhibition of which Stephen Jones is the curator. From the splendour of the guards' helmuts at Buckingham Palace to the baseball caps in Dalston market, the hat is, and always has been, embedded in the city's culture.

In the book published to coincide with the current exhibition, Jones laments "why are hats remaindered to the Timbuktu of fashion when they are in fact its Shangri-la?" And he's right. It has been many years since women, in the process of accessorising, have reached for hats as naturally as they do bags or jewellery. This major exhibition aims to revive interest in this oft-forgotten accessory. It traces the evolution of hats, from inspiration to the intricacies of construction, shedding light along the way on everything from the history of the hatbox to the turbans place in fashion.

Wandering the exhibition, I realised that the hat is more than a mere accessory. It is a sign of religious affiliation (yasmulke), a culural emblem (sombrebo), and a status symbol (mortarboard). It is a style signature both onscreen (Indiana Jones weathered fedora),and off (Slash's top hat). And, occasionally it can be a little bit of everything- such as the beret, which has been affiliated with countless military factions, Che Guevara, French culture, Bonnie & Clyde and er, Monica Lewinsky.

If you see me out and about wearing my newly purchased paper hat (not very practical, but then again, the best things in life rarely are), at least you now know why. Hats off to Stephen Jones!

Picnics, pigeons and men in camoflauge...what an afternoon

Yesterday, despite having a 'to-do' list the length of my arm, I threw caution to the wind and decided to take advantage of the sunshine and relative cloud-free sky by heading down to Hyde Park with my friend Aimee. Work/play balance is key, right?!

Sunny days are a godsend for us cash-strapped students as you can eat your pre-prepared lunch from your rather tragic looking plastic tuperware container, and rather than just look a bit frugal, you can turn the whole sorry activity into a an alfresco dining experience, aka. a 'picnic'. As it turns out, everyone loves picnics, not least of all Aimee and I.

There were some minor slip-ups however; one being that it's not so easy to eat couscous with chopsticks. Note to self: bring appropriate cutlery to picnics in future and do not depend on utensils stolen from Asian restaurants and thrown to the bottom of handbags. Another minor hazard were the pigeons who were eying up our food. Although I'm not quite sure how much they would have appreciated my couscous, I'm pretty sure they would have enjoyed Aimee's rather delicious looking sandwich, leaving us with the dilemma 'to share or not to share?' As much as I dislike pigeons, I couldn't help but feel as though we had invited ourselves into someone’s home, cracked open a delicious treat and didn't offer even a taste to our hosts. On this occasion however, we kept our food to ourselves (it was very tasty after all). I didn't want to give the pigeons the wrong impression- throw them one crust and next thing you know they could very well be perched on your arm pecking mercifully into your hand looking for more. You know those pigeons, it's just take take take...

Happily, the pigeons were not our only distraction. While Aimee and I were the ultimate ladies of leisure, army men were busy running rings around us, dressed in all their army gear, hauling huge backpacks around while screaming at their fellow army folk, and being shouted at by the leader of the bunch (we knew he was the leader because he was the only one who got to wear a white wifebeater tank top, lucky man). No skipping ropes for these guys, but wow, they are hard workers. Then again, I would be too if an insanely muscley man behind me was bellowing 'run faster faggot, FASTER!' into my eardrum. Who know how many skips I could do under that kind of pressure!

Not the quiet, chilled-out afternoon that we had first envisaged. But hey, when army men present themselves, who are we to turn them away. I’m loving Hyde Park.

my first ever blog post (is that what it's called?)

It's my first blogging day, yay! There is now a blogspot, a place in this crazy little cyber world, with my name on it which I actually created myself. Pretty amazing don't you think?!

Naturally for my first post I wanted to write about something great, something really exciting and something that makes me delightfully happy and content. And here it is. Jumprope. In short, I'm loving it.

This morning I got out of bed filled with enthusiasm, I couldn't wait to get my skipping rope and I down to the local park to happily skip away the morning. I even forgo my morning cup of coffee I was that exicted. I got to the park. I streched. I jogged a little to warm up, got some tunes going, reached for the skipping rope, and began....

I couldn't go more than thirty seconds without a miss. Seventeen jumps in a row, miss. Seven jumps, miss. Twenty-eight jumps, miss. Two jumps, miss. The inconsistency was killing me- killing my rhythm, my endorphin high, my self-respect. If I'm this uncoordinated, I thought, why not chuck the rope and go back to bed? Not as productive, but at least I'll have a stress-free morning and and a chance to read magazines.

All in all I jumped rope for twenty minutes, before I realised that maybe I did need that morning cup of coffee after all. Coordination is key to skipping, and perhaps I just cannot be coordinated without the help of a little caffeine. Sometimes enthusiasim just is not enough. Although endless, uninterupted skipping just was not going to happen this morning, I still smiled the whole way home. I'm smiling now just thinking about how many jumps I might be able to do tomorrow. Thirty? No no, definately forty. Could I push myself to fifty?! Oh the obsession begins...

So no, this morning was not my finest display of skipping, but within a short time I'm sure I'll find myself moving confidently through the ropes with a sense of accomplishment and creativity. That's the plan. I will, of course, keep you posted!