UPKEEP...

It makes me very happy to rejuvenate clothes. I always go by the principle of quality over quantity and I'm surprised at how many people still don't get this. Buy three well made, but relatively expensive, pieces of clothing per year, wear them for ten years vs. buying a whole new wardrobe every season from the high street: Guess which is more economical?

I am seriously hardcore about this: I'd prefer my clothes to last at least fifteen years, so I wouldn't have to replace things I love that I've searched for high and low to find the perfect, cut, colour, fabric etc again. I've thought of having a dressmaker I know remake a few pieces that became too sad looking to wear, but that I was too sad to part with. Nothing lasts in perfect condition forever, however well made.

The things I really love are the things I end up wearing a lot, so I've learnt to look after them. I can sew, which helps with repairs and I'm on great terms with my dry cleaner and shoe repair man. Now I have the fabric de-fuzzer/de-bobbler, I will never have to shop again! My god, that thing works! I don't know where this thrifty make-do and mend side comes from, but I do remember my dad welding pieces of bicycle tyre onto the bottom of his tennis shoes to repair them when I was a child... I promise I will never go that far. (In his defence he was born during the second world war and grew up with rationing, which didn't end in the UK until 1954.) But I get coats re-lined when they look tired, I get my shoes re-soled and heeled often (professionally!), I hang everything properly, put my cashmere in boxes with anti-moth stuff, get things dry cleaned, sew loose buttons back on. My wardrobe is generally a well oiled machine.

And people think I'm insane to do this. No, really, they do. It just makes sense to me - why would I throw stuff on the floor or not take care of it? When I worked in swanky designer stores people would often try things on and leave them in a tangled heap on the changing room floor. And I bet they did that at home because their maid would go round and pick everything up and get it dry cleaned. Since many of those people went shopping on Sloane Street all day every day anyway, they probably forgot all about an item having worn it once (I have stories which illustrate this but I cannot tell!) and just went to buy more. Also not economical - though if you spend your life going shopping with your husband's black Amex card and having facials every day you probably don't care!

It's not just about money - I'm not sitting there with my de-fuzzer hoping the batteries won't run out because I can't afford to buy any more. It genuinely makes me happy that a Miu Miu coat that I couldn't wear for years except for gardening or dog walking - or something else I never do - I can now wear again in civilised society.

FIRST WEEK...

New year's tasks: writing everyone's birthdays in the new moleskine (I always have this red one) wearing my Family Affairs Good Spirit dress just seen on the right and repairing clothes - mostly sewing on buttons etc but I finally sewed elbow patches on my old fave APC cashmere jumper that my pointy elbows had escaped from after five years of almost daily wear. 

Items: I was given some money for Christmas, which my bank account swallowed whole for some horrifying/semi-bankrupting expenses - but I've managed to choose some lovely necessities as well. Rose Day Cream Light is so good for my red, sensitive skin - it makes it all velvety and calm - so much so that I feel like I can go out without make up, which I hate wearing. When you have a problem with redness, make up almost makes it look worse, or like what you're attempting to cover up is worse than it is. And Anabela's Dreamcats Calendar - I can't wait for these daft adorable kitties to help me remember what day it is every day...

Gold arrow bracelet: this is my little Christmas gift to myself - for protection, to remind me to go forward, stay moving in the right direction - and because I like arrows. 

The January daylight situation. This is how light my bedroom is for a few hours a day before it gets dark again. We shall overcome. 

THINGS I {LOVE}, OCTOBER...

I'm doing away with the "like" for October; this month it's actual love. Maybe it sounds all swishy, but then some of these things are pretty swishy themselves. Beware that I'm about to gush massively about girly stuff.

My first love is: matte velvet. I've never been that drawn to shiny things. The walls of my flat are painted in flat eggshell, the woodwork is matte enamel paint - I'm just not a gloss type of person. Perusing the new Chanel nail colours for autumn I was not convinced by Quartz and Peridot: not very flattering to my skin tone and very reminiscent of the metallics from Urban Decay and Hard Candy in the nineties, which wasn't that long ago. . .was it?! OK, maybe I'm ancient, but I've seen all that before.

By far the best offering is the mat velvet top coat - it's also in its way a frugal chic purchase as you can use it on top of any nail polish and it will turn it completely matte in seconds. Hours of fun, you have no idea. First of all I was doing a kind of French reverse manicure thing over oxblood red, keeping the half moons shiny with matte tips - then I went for just matte. It makes the polish look like it's fused to your nail, which is somehow very smart. More matte nails here. (D.V. would be so into it - you know she claimed in her memoirs to have been the true unsung inventor of commercial nail polish.) Then if you put hand cream on, it turns a kind of burnished half matte - let's call it satinwood if we're sticking with the Dulux theme - but you can just put another coat on to re-mattify it. I think I've already used half a bottle, which by the way is also extremely handsome to look at, being matte black. I also bought the Chanel Rouge Allure Velvet lipstick in La Somptuese - a matte brick red. But if I wallop on a highly pigmented lipstick like that, I just look like Cruella de Ville or a goth - so I smudge it on lightly with my finger. This is the first Chanel lipstick I've bought since they brought out the click release opening and I don't care what anyone says: design matters. It's so pleasing to use - the iPhone of lipstick case design.

Girly onslaught over.

My new winter peacoat from. . . my family friends' attic, where it had been hanging for 30 years having been bought as part of the school uniform for their son's short lived attendance at boarding school at the age of 12. It was a mean, horrid school so he got out of there fast, and the coat was never worn. Possibly noting that I wear navy every day, they thought I might like it and they were right.

Mat topcoat AND old/new/old button = efficiency.

Being a boy's coat, rather than a man's the proportions are perfect and the cuffs just hit on my wrists. When I had it dry cleaned it lost a button so I changed them for the buttons that came from the WWII military great coat D's mum gave me years ago in Italy. (I sadly had to part with the coat, but I kept the beautiful buttons.) So happy with my new old winter coat with the old new old buttons.

Sewing helper

Bill Cunningham New York. It's frustrating to write about films here, because release dates differ so drastically worldwide and people are reading from all over. I know this film was released months ago in the US, but it doesn't have a release date in the UK until February 2012 for some bizarre reason. I was able to watch it yesterday, and again this morning. It's hard to even put into words, but honour, ethics, kindness, joy and singular vision are the ones I wish I could arrange into something coherent to describe Mr. Cunningham as seen in this documentary. This film was so moving and poignant. It had me in pieces.

SEASONS...

September always feels like the real beginning of the year to me. Who wants to make resolutions, stride forward and make things happen in darkest January? I never do, but September does that for me. You won't find me bemoaning the end of summer because - we don't have one here, though I was lucky to feel a little bit of sun in Portugal and I'll bet they still have some over there. But August always seems to me like a flat month - nothing changes, the flowers and greenery start to look stale, the rest of Europe is on holiday - it's that sort of in-betweeny stagnant feeling that suddenly lifts with the beginning of September. I LOVE AUTUMN. It makes me want to get on with it, bring in new things for the coming season, let go of the old, prepare for the coming winter. (I also really struggle with the last months of winter - again, over it - get some leaves on those trees would you.) Of course September gives you all those back to school feelings, which was never fun, but was much alleviated by choosing back to school shoes and bags.

This September I'm allowing myself to buy some new clothes - something I haven't really done for three years due to er, being completely skint all the time! I feel quite excited about it because it's been so long. Time for a major wardrobe overhaul - hence the shop to let go of things I don't wear - not because I don't like them but because boringly maybe, I know what suits me. One of the reasons I never post about what I wear is because it would quickly become oh, extremely repetitive. I generally wear the same things over and over until I change to a new thing. Winter is basically cropped trousers and a cashmere jumper. Though my aim is always to buy good quality clothes that last, I've been wearing things until they literally wear out, which started to make me feel a bit downtrodden and glum. I bought a couple of new things over the summer, but nothing that really changes my wardrobe.

Colenimo Amelia jumper

The elbow of my beloved, much worn APC cashmere jumper finally wore through the other day (elbow patches forthcoming) and then as fate would have it Colenimo opened its webshop at the weekend so I was able to snap up the dreamy Amelia jumper I'd had my eye on. I was their first customer, haha! That made both me and them happy I think... So that's my replacement for the cashmere jumper - now I need a much better upgrade for the crappy navy cropped trousers I've been wearing for ages - I swear I'm going to throw them in the bin, really I am, just really soon, I will. And after wading through literally thousands of polyester vintage polka dot blouses on etsy, I finally found some that weren't highly flammable, so I'll show you those when they arrive.

Emerson Made black and cream ribbons blouse

The amount of times in the past year that I've placed a huge order from Emerson Made in the cart then got worried about customs charges and fees and bailed I cannot tell you; it's too embarrassing. If I could just have one of everything they make I'd be all set for winter - no, for life! The woman is a genius, but then you already know that. OK, I'd start with this, this, these and this. But yeah, I really like their little black pant and I already own a few cummerbunds, though it seems a shame juuusst to get those and nothing else. *Cogitation.*

Onwards with the winter wardrobe reinvention. First stop: my shoe guy to get rubber soles put on my APC Mary Janes.

MINI POPS DIY...

Having seen these cute little bobby pins from J.Crew that I couldn't find anywhere in London, I did what any resourceful girl would do and made them myself. I painted all my favourite nail varnish colours onto the ends of some bobby pins I already had at home (3 thin layers is best). They look exactly the same as the bought ones!

ONE OF EACH...

I'm just putting these Comme des Garçons shirts here so I can look at them and stop hatching mad schemes to buy them both. {1, 2}

SO LONG...

I've been really getting into wearing long dresses. Not of the floaty printed boho maxi variety, no - the long jersey solid colour variety. I compared many, many of these at different price points and I can say with some confidence that you should buy one from New Look and no one will ever be able to tell that you spent £15 rather than £150. And I don't require a special occasion to get out the Avalon dress, which I now refer to as my ballgown. The amount of fabric in the skirt is very pleasing, and gives everything you do a different quality - as if you're wearing a casual black wedding dress - going to the loo requires hoiking a load of fabric over your shoulder, going down steps the skirt must be attended to - it's fun! But really I would like this dress Daria's wearing in Dossier. I'd wear it every day in the kitchen, to the supermarket.

HELLO INTERNET...

I was without internet connection for two days, which was a shame because I had some really mindblowing and important things to say about nail varnish.

Due to my having to venture into the outside world and socialize during this time, I am feeling a little blurry today. In fact this morning I may have used the words my, mouth, feels and badger's arse in conjunction with each other.

I'm not sure if I'm up to rambling nail varnish related prose, but I'll have a go anyway. I'm certainly not up to doing a photo to go with this post, so I'll do that later. If I'm going to do a photo, then I have to re-do the nail varnish, which to even the most detail oriented person looks perfect, but no, not quite. This is the problem, the thing I was going to talk about. I've become a bit obsessed with a certain nail polish and it's not Chanel Jade, or that You Don't Know Jacques one. Nope, it's Rapid Ruby by Rimmel, which is kind of a 1940s red, if you know what I mean.

And it's cheap as chips, which is lucky as I feel the need to remove and reapply it daily. If there's as much as a hint of a chip, or dent or flake I have to take it all off and start again. No just carefully filling in the damaged bit - I can see it. So I'm off to remove the polish again - at this point my actual nails have turned a sort of acid washed pink colour (even using a clear base coat doesn't help) and my fingers are stained. But I can't stop.

POST CONSUMERISM GIFT GUIDE...

Or: no time, no photos, (no snow) but lots of links. Click them. x

To recap: I used to have to buy up to 40 presents for relatives each year, so my consumerism fatigue set in way, way before the current recession - oh, about 10 years before. Now we have thankfully called a halt to the madness I realise that I actually love giving gifts to people. {If you think you might be getting a gift from me and you like surprises: stop reading now.}

Back when consumerism wasn't a dirty word (last year) I did an under £50 gift guide for Gridskipper that still stands up now, (providing none of the shops mentioned have gone bust this week) if you want to go about things in the traditional way. But it feels slightly obscene to be trawling the high street buying loads of shit no one really needs, if you'll pardon my French. (This post on planned obsolescence is really worth reading too.) This year my emphasis is definitely on local and/or handmade.

I so loved making the blurb photo book I did in the summer. I do think that is the best gift you could give. For a family gift you could compile Christmas day photos over the years - mine would be of people asleep on the sofa with their mouths open. If you were doing this you would have been so on it weeks ago as blurb takes about 3 weeks to publish and deliver, Apple takes two weeks normally but you'd be cutting it way too fine if you hadn't got your arse in gear by now. (cough)

My local area was in mid gentrification when the recession hit so I'm making a point of buying gifts from the local independent shops that opened less than a year ago (one has already closed, there's a Lease For Sale sign on another and the others seem to be just hanging on.) There are three farmers' markets within a couple of miles of here so they'll be getting a visit too. If, like me, you know a lot of virile people with beaucoup offspring, a hamper is the perfect gift for all the family: wine, champagne, cheeses, chocolates, tea, preserves and specialty bits and pieces from local sources, all nestled in a wooden wine crate (free if you chat up a wine merchant) and wrapped up in a (very reasonably priced) National Trust recycled picnic blanket. Excuse me for being a Granny but the National Trust is always worth supporting.

And finally, at Christmas my inner Martha will be silenced no longer. I realise that she doesn't possess everyone so the answer to that would be to buy handmade, either via etsy of course (but check final posting dates) or to visit artists' studios which are all holding Christmas Open Studio events about now (I went to two last weekend). Even artists whose work is out of your price range will very likely have been enterprising enough to offer cards or small, affordable gifts for sale. And you get to eat mince pies and be merry in person. Being of the crafty persuasion I'm using fabric and trimmings I already had in my stash to make gifts for mes amies. I've done this for the past couple of years: gingerbread biscuits here, Xmas stockings here. I enjoy thinking up and making them; they get a personal handmade gift: win/win.

Oh and the best (and so easy to make) thing to adorn your beautifully wrapped pressies: paper roses - tutorial here.

LOU FOR LESS...

Lou Doillon by Lee Cooper is offering Lola Is Beauty readers 15% off everything in the Lou Doillon collection online shop until the end of the year. Just use the code lolalou. Some of it is already on sale so, you know - practically free and all that. Oh, this shirt would be cosy today...

p.s. I'm so in love with the way they've done the website so successfully in that scrapbooky, handwritten way; with stuck in notes and pictures and things you click on that are little videos...

YESTERDAY I...

Picked the first handful of ripe blueberries for breakfast

Filed every single bit of paperwork

Was given a lovely dead mouse as a gift (better dead than alive)

Ordered a water meter

Re-styled my homemade chandelier:

Before

After

This is invariably known as my crappy attempt or something; but I just bought the frame (really cheap) at Homebase and sprayed it white. For the past few years whenever I travel somewhere there might be chandeliers aplenty, I trawl antique shops and markets for the broken off bits, which you usually have to ask for.

I've got bits, let's say drops, it sounds nicer, drops mostly from Florence, Venice, Madrid, Paris and I can't remember where else now. I think there are a couple from Portobello but they were five pounds each or something ridiculous. If you buy them in Italy, you can reasonably pick up a whole haul. The ultimate frugal chic.

There's a really good source in Florence where I got masses last time, that were still lying around wrapped in pages of the Corriere della Serra newspaper waiting to be used. So yesterday I had a blissful time with my wire and pliers putting together the summer 08 version - I went with smoky purple, grey and amber, with a little blue. I'm loving that crystal "disco ball" which I bought for a friend but which was cruelly mocked, then rejected.
WHO'S MOCKING NOW, HEY?

Now for the next couple of weeks when I'm lying in bed I'll suddenly spring up and change a bit round so it's all perfectly randomly balanced. In fact, I've already changed it since I took this photo yesterday. I know chandeliers are a little "out" now, but they never will be for me. J'adore tinkering with my little creation so much.

VIDE GRENIER...

Even in deepest rural Burgundy I managed to go into a shopping frenzy (apart from the obligatory wine degustations). Vide Grenier translates literally as empty attic and all through the summer French villages take it in turn to hold their own attic clearing days, usually on a Sunday - kind of like their version of a car boot sale, only with rusty farm implements ready to be turned into cool outdoor lamps or sculpture, piles of starched vintage linens, and enamel jugs and tins of the kind Au Petit Bonheur La Chance sells in Paris for 50 euro. Now we know where they buy them.

Some of the vide grenier vendors seemed to be professionals and I don't know how it works, if you're allowed to set up a stall if you don't live in the village. Their stuff was more expensive, but generally, the actual people from the village were selling some really charming things for a euro, two euros. Well, they are French, of course their attics are full of charming, stylish oddments.

I was in male company, so felt under pressure not to conform to stereotype and clear the entire village of Yrouerre out of its unwanted junk. It was really tempting as we had a car and I had visions of starting my own antiques business. I am showing you this photo as only you will understand why I needed to buy an old aquamarine alarm clock and a rusty, beautifully designed *furniture polish* oops, edit, household cleaning fluid tin.

I also bought some espadrilles (5 euro at the ATAC supermarket in Chaource for those interested in such details) so my entire shopping frenzy cost a total of nine euros.
Um, not including wine.

SCRAPS...

Feet: meet your new shoes. Cheap and cheerful from Zara and make all your clothes look better. How do they do that?

It's surprising that it's so hard to find any of these clips of Kate Moss in Ellen von Unwerth's film Inferno. Really bad quality but worth it to see a much younger Kate scampering around...

Aaaannnd lovely vintage/Lyell store Marie Louise de Monterey has a blog now. So if you're not in Paris you (I) can admire their wares from afar...and le sigh a little...

I'm going somewhere there are no shops and no internet (it's not Burma or rehab.)
Back on Monday - bon weekend!

BECAUSE I AM NICE...

PAUL & JOE CLEARANCE SALE - UP TO 90% OFF

FRIDAY 14 MARCH 2PM – 7PM
SATURDAY 15 MARCH 11AM – 7PM
SUNDAY 16 MARCH 11AM – 7PM

WOMENS . MENS . KIDS . ACCESSORIES . COSMETICS

ALL JEANS £30 INCLUDING TRUE RELIGION, ROCK & REPUBLIC, SASS & BIDE, J BRAND & JOES JEANS

SHOP 14/15 Hanbury Street
The Old Truman Brewery
London E1 6QR

Promise you won't buy it all before I get there...
*Thanks Z!

IT'S MINT WHEN YOU'RE SKINT...

I finally got around to photographing my little winter projects: I knitted this neckwarmer in um, November. It was supposed to be a scarf but I did too many stitches and it was going to take forever so I changed it into this:

And I had that old Miu Miu coat re-lined in the Morning Glory Slate fabric (ahem, that no one liked!)

I haven't been buying any new clothes at all. (I got hit with a humongously terrifying tax bill which I should have put money aside for but really who does that? Besides, I didn't know how much it was going to be.) Anyway I'm now in the make do and mend frame of mind, which, being a bit of a frugal hoarder I secretly slightly enjoy - as long as it's only temporary.

I remember my grandmother telling me that during the war she made herself a skirt suit out of my grandpa's old overcoat. Things aren't quite that bad yet, but I do enjoy taking stuff apart and making it into something else.

Now I'm onto spring projects, my thriftyness knows no bounds. I'm starting with taking details off tops that have got damaged/gone bobbly and putting them onto plain t-shirts for the summer. Comme ca:

The top (thank you not very cheap at all Sandro in rue Vieille du Temple) went completely bobbly and horrible after I washed it once and was then unwearable. I've got loads of bits like that, details I really like that I've saved to put on something else.

My other top thrifty tip is to buy flowers once a week. You have something beautiful to look at and you don't feel that you're going without. And you're only spending four or five pounds. Of course in the summer you can just steal flowers out of people's front gardens. (joking)

DECISION/INDECISION...

Well, that is funny. Impatient moi went ahead and ordered the Morning Glory Slate (before I got any of your comments!) Then I woke up this morning thinking how really, the print I'd imagined was something like this Eley Kishimoto print which you can't buy just as a fabric:

And how the colour of the coat looks best against fuschia. So I started browsing Volksfaden again and finally decided on this:

A quickly dashed email was sent to try and change the order before they cut the cloth, making it non returnable. Then, browsing Volksfagen again, which is the perfect relaxing activity to distract one from the pile of almost toppling over papers in front of one, I saw this:

Blue eyelashes, oh my...not for the coat, but...

I realised I cannot choose anything because I like them all and it really is such a good way to spend the day avoiding work, as is blogging, hence the blogging frenzy this week. So. I decided to accept my fate. And the nice lady from Volksfagen emailed me back to say that not only had she cut the fabric, she had already posted it to me. So I can attest to the amazing efficiency of the company and I'm sure it will look fine. I'll just have to order some 50cm lengths of my fave prints to satisfy this craving. That or be sent to a home for the textileally insane.

EVERY CLOUD...

I've been looking everywhere for some cute printed fabric to re- line my old "relegated to dog walking even though I don't have a dog" coat. I was thinking Liberty print but they're a bit expensive to use for lining, ditto Marimekko. And all the cool online fabric places are either in the US or Japan. Stumped was I. So what perfect timing that Jenny posted about Volksfaden fabrics. They're 100% cotton and ship from Germany. The prices are very reasonable (to someone used to paying pounds in London. Maybe the prices are just normal.) The Volksfaden website is very groovy and makes me think of all the things I could do with some good patterned fabric. So now I just have to choose one. They have some lovely Japanesey prints and I was thinking of going for something really mismatching and bold but in a (hopefully) good way. Notice I'm not showing you the coat as it is now. This is mostly because if anyone I know sees it they will think I am insane to still be wearing it after all these years. But you'll see, you'll see...

I've narrowed it down to three (the coat is steel grey/blue)

The Morning Glory Slate would "go" the best, but I really like Chestnuts Lichen and Chestnut Branch Eggplant too.

Eenie meenie minie mo...

MATH(S)...

It's finally reached that point. I bought ingredients to make cupcakes at Sainsbury's and actually gasped at the price as I handed over my card. £27. Twenty seven pounds for some butter, eggs, flour and sugar. A similar thing had happened in Ikea when they didn't have the shelves I wanted in stock so I just picked up a few random useful things on my way round, like spatulas.
It came to over £70.

And then of course having just been in New York you can't help, when confronted with the £27 for cupcake ingredients which you then have to actually go and make yourself, think: that's nearly $60...I could have flown some in from Magnolia Bakery for that price.

I know I am often wittering on about this difference in pricing when I go to Paris and I'm hardly an economics whizz, but today, I have figures!

In New York I had the lovely experience of careening round the Barney's beauty department grabbing anything that took my fancy. When it was all totted up the bill was less than a traipse around Boots to get some boring essentials.

A small sample of transatlantic beauty swag:

Kiehls' Olive Oil Hairpak - US price: $25, UK price: £23

Kiehl's Abyssine Eye Cream - US price: $30, UK price: £27

Kiehl's French Rosewater - US price: $13, UK price:£13

Chantecaille Future Skin- US price: $65, UK price: £49 - that is ridiculous, who has that kind of money?

I know, the pound is too high, and twenty five dollars to an American is the same to them as twenty five pounds to us. But is it really? (BB feel free to impart wisdom.) Kiehl's stuff basically reflects the exchange rate exactly so I'm thinking they're not exactly ripping us off on purpose. I have emailed them to ask what the deal is but I haven't heard back. But Chantecaille? Naughty. I was talking to a make up artist who said that it's cheaper for her to fly to New York for the weekend and re-stock her kit with Nars etc than it is for her to buy supplies in London.

So then how do British beauty companies whose prices are just as high justify that? They don't have to import the stuff, are they just keeping prices artificially high? I am determined to get to the bottom of this because British girls deserve to buy nice things without "skinting theirselves" as my car mechanic would say.

So there, I am living in a country where we're constantly stocking up on luxuries we can't afford here when we travel, then coming home and paying luxury prices for bog standard basics. No wonder American women look so well groomed compared to us.
So next time you see a typical British woman with patchy skin, parched hair and ragged nails take pity. She just hasn't been out of the country for a while.

I, on the other hand will be all moisturised and sparkly for the next month at least, or until the Kiehl's magic runs out.

And then we get onto the Marc Jacobs syndrome. I don't want to kick the poor guy when he's down (get well soon Marc!) but in London (like everywhere) everyone clamours for all things Marc. It is very exclusive and very, very expensive, like £800 for a mainline (oops, bad pun) bag.
MJ is basically, like all the beauty products I now have lined up in my bathroom from Barney's, out of most people in London's reach. And yet, it sells out, again and again. Compare that with New York where in both Barney's and Saks there were rails of MJ sale racks and the actual stores (the Bleecker Street ones) were just plain weird to girls used to it all being displayed beautifully. Racks stuffed messily with merchandise, then the accessories shop we thought was selling fakes at first, with big buckets full of Marc Jacobs mirror compacts for $10 each. "Why didn't you get me one?" you're thinking. Because they were all scratched and most of the clasps didn't work - all they needed was a Made in Taiwan sticker.

So there's the other side of the coin.

I was once having a conversation with a woman in Paris about why the shoes by a British designer I was buying from her were less expensive there than they were in London from the designer's own shop. She said that if the price wasn't high enough, London girls wouldn't buy it.
I told her she was mad (at least in my head I did, I probably just gave her a funny look).
I would love to think that I like things for the piece and not the label every time but when confronted with Marc Jacobs piled high and sold cheap in every style and size, honestly?
It was all confusing and jumbled and its allure was instantly lost to me.

DECADENTLY FRUGAL...

Oh, internet how I've missed you. You probably haven't even noticed I was gone, I know. But I haven't been able to read any blogs or anything online, much less compose a post on this one because the ow, ow, ow, agony of scrolling, how it burned my eyes and frazzled my brain. That's the punishment you get for ignoring for two weeks the fact that the entire left side of your body has seized up and your joints click loudly every time you move. You get a mo'fo of a migraine. I mean really, how old/drunk do you have to be to need a craniosacral osteopathy treatment to deal with the effects of going to a party two weeks ago? 30, and very, apparently. Ah, but I slept last night. Do you know how wonderful it is to sleep in a position that does not involve having to lie on your stomach and prop up your left hip?

Here is the post I kept eking out in dribs and drabs this week and to me it reads so very, very strangely. Perhaps because I was dosed up on various painkillers at various times and didn't bash it out in one draft like I usually do. But it's all I got for yous today. I'm off to catch up on Sarto.

I always get the feeling that half the people in my life think I am too frivolous and decadent, and the other half think I am not frivolous or decadent enough. The same conflict goes on inside me - I'm drawn to all things that enhance quality of life, then I feel guilty when I enjoy them. Somehow linked to this inner wrangling is that this week I re employed Granny Dragon's leopard print coat. (That was actually what our entire family called her; non family members addressed her simply as The Dragon.) Granny Dragon's arch manner would have had Anna Wintour cowering in a corner, but she did have a shit hot wardrobe. I've had this fifties A line black and white leopard print raincoat that was hers for years, but always felt a bit "look at me!" wearing it. Now at the ripe old age of 30 I've grown into it. Not literally but in the sense that I now wear the coat, it does not wear me. And frankly if you don't like it I metaphorically raise my middle finger in salute to you. See what the coat does to me? Soon I'll be quaffing G&Ts and referring to the window cleaner as "that dreadful little man". Anyway it's all in the attitude. And this coat does change me. Like a shield it allows me to ignore the frugal voices in my head. And do you know what I discovered, that I'm sure my Granny knew all along? Decadent frugality is the antidote to false economy.
I shall explain.
Wearing The Coat I went to the Post Office in Borough High Street. It was lunchtime and the queue stretched out of the door and along the street. Normally I would have waited, becoming increasingly agitated with each passing minute. So I left the queue and wandered down to the market to grab a bite to eat. I could have gone to Pret a Manger and paid about £7 for a sandwich and a drink. I could even have bought a very posh and delicious take away drink and sandwich to eat sitting on the kerb, costing about £10 from Konditor & Cook. (Who were single-handedly responsible for my gaining 12 pounds in two months when I worked near their bakery) But somehow due to the coat, I ended up seated at The Wright Brothers Oyster House with half a dozen oysters and a glass of white wine in front of me. I felt so guilty until looking around, the place was busy. No one else was simultaneously beating themselves up whilst slurping down oysters. Then I realised that my super fabulous lunch wasn't much more expensive than either of the other options. I must go there on a Saturday when they open at 10am for 'The Breakfast of Champions'. Apparently oysters are a great hangover cure.

Still sporting my coat I headed to Piccadilly and Jermyn Street where I had an appointment. I felt peckish - again, and my knee was about to fall off. Again I had choices - Starbucks, Caffe Nero, all the usuals. But hello one of my favourite places, The Wolseley. So again I chose the decadent option. The Wolseley does look a bit imposing from the outside, but inside it's just lovely. If you're ever visiting London I insist you go there for afternoon tea. You can sit in the main cavernous bit, but I like to sit in the salon to the left of the door as you enter. I ask you, how, just how is it preferable in any way to get a £4 slopped over the rim, gloopy caramel macchiato from Starbucks and drink it at a dirty table, than to be seated by a nice waiter at a corner table in the Viennese style grandeur of The Wolseley, peruse the menu, then order a hot chocolate made to your specifications? Pure melted chocolate in the base of the glass, topped up with milk (soya for me - cows' milk = pus = no thanks) and its own little whisk to blend the two together. You can sit there in the black and gold lacquered salon watching the clientele eat precision cut sandwiches and scones from tiered silver cake stands and the umbrellas bobbing along in the rain outside for hours. The only time the staff will bother you is for a friendly chat and to make sure you're ok. This costs THREE pounds. That's what I call good value, the other option is false economy.

At this point half the people reading this who know me in real life should be thinking “that’s SO the kind of thing you would do/say”. The other half, and the ones much more likely to actually be reading this will be thinking “why didn’t you have afternoon tea, then go for a manicure as well?” I love you all, but I would really prefer to go for a drink with the manicure encouragers.

My new inner mantra is "At the end, nobody will thank you for not living your life." I can adapt this to the situation, for example "nobody will thank you for choosing to drink a £4 caramel macchiato in Starbucks when you could have had a £3 hot chocolate at The Wolseley."

*Post painkiller update: I also remembered that the last time I wore that coat was years ago when I still lived with my parents. To get to the station I had to run the gauntlet of funny stares from the narrow minded inhabitants of our suburban commuter village, so I could hop on a train to London and civilisation. It was when the Eurostar first started running and I'd watch forlornly as it zoomed past wishing I was on it going to Paris. Who knew? I always look out for that station when I'm on the Eurostar and every time we pass it by without my noticing.

DEAR H&M...

I love you. Where else could I go to escape the rain with the intention of possibly finding a cobalt blue t-shirt and instead stumble upon:

2 pairs of trousers (one pair khaki, one pair blue) that bear an uncanny resemblance to these lovely Hollywood pants (pictured) by Kristinit. (Though I'm sure with the requisite amount of details changed for legal purposes.) I don't mind that I had to try 5 pairs of the same style to find the right fit, or that a size 10 came up smaller than a size 8. It just makes me go 'tsk' as one would at the antics of a lovable yet errant child you don't have to see very often.

How could I not love you for making a perfect cardi in cream with a red trim that somehow reminds me of war issue blankets.
I almost discarded it when I looked at the £9.99 price tag.
I thought it must be acrylic but no you teaser, it's 45% linen, 55% cotton. How do you do that for £9.99?

Now I am unsuccessfully trying to erase the words 'Made in China' and dreadful visions of just how they keep those prices down from my consciousness.

This post seems to have done a 180 on me.

How to reconcile the feeling that you want to support small designers with the reality that you can buy 2 pairs of trousers for under £50 or the almost identical ones they were 'inspired' by for $210 plus postage?

Here's a link to Treehugger to help us on our way.
** And to this if you happen to be anywhere near Brooklyn this weekend.