WHO'S THE BOY YOU LIKE THE MOST...

And the award for most good natured crowd surfing goes to Mr Thomas Mars of Phoenix. An over exuberant teenage boy next to me yelled out, "Oh my God, I got a piece of his hair!" I've never really got the concept of desperately trying to touch the artist engaged in surfing, but I guess it's the done thing and Thomas was right next to me a couple of times so I gave him a pat on the back because he seems like such a nice chap. Phoenix were excellent - full energy, great mix of songs with a few unexpected ones thrown in, such as an acoustic version of Everything is Everything with everyone singing quietly along and Air's Playground Love. I was slightly concerned at how they were going to keep Love Like a Sunset from veering into conceptual space out territory, but they did it - and brilliantly (like this).

They looked so happy, and they made us happy and then we were all happy. It was sort of like that.
{My photos}

LINA...

I know you don't need me to tell you about Lina Scheynius. If this was the kind of blog that relied solely on other people's pictures for content, it might be hard not to illustrate every post with one of her pictures and this is a fine excuse to do just that. Visiting her exhibition at Viktor Wynd Fine Art in Mare St on Saturday to see her photos in physical reality felt like meeting internet friends for the first time: familiar and intimate, yet strange.



I think I can safely say she's my favourite photographer working currently. I love the personal diary element of her work and her non techy any camera + any film + available light approach.

{The exhibition runs until 25 April.}

SCRAPS...

*The Impossible Project starts selling Polaroid film again today - and a medium is saved.

*My cousin in Barcelona played me her friend Samantha de Siena's album and I like it. She sounds a bit like PJ Harvey channeling Amelie Poulain - no, the other way around.

*With minutes to spare before taking the train from Passeig de Gracia, I ducked into Oysho and was so overcome by the cute Liberty prints and ticking stripes in thin cotton underwear and homewear that I couldn't choose anything. And of course they have shops in Montenegro, Kuwait and a variety of other random locations but not in the UK. (I think I may have been to their shop in Venice with Anna once?)

Guess what? Their spring collection is inspired by David Hamilton's Demoiselles. If I had a penny for every collection inspired by those photos I could buy one.

IPHONE MARCH...

Clearly, having an iPhone is severely affecting the quality of photos I post here, but hey, there are more of them and it's so bloody convenient. And I don't even need to remember where I've been now.

{Kent countryside, Richard Wilson's 20:50 at Saatchi, Ajit Chauhan ReRecord at Saatchi, A heart, Barcelona}

BCN + ...

Before heading out for an evening in Barcelona, there is the obligatory dance party with cats and wigs.

Dear Randy and Lois, Lola accepts your kind invitation to visit.

Then it was out into the countryside to visit family in Montseny - it was so lovely. We had a really wild thyme (you had to be there) and I implemented the ritual of a daily post-breakfast siesta. Do you have any idea how fully knackered and booted in the head by life one has to be to need a post breakfast siesta? In any case, the fun night in Barcelona with friends, good food, clear air, long walks in nature and sleep were most rejuvenating. I returned to my delayed flight, car not starting at the airport, long diversion due to roadworks and getting home at 2.30am to be greeted with shit to clean up, with a clearer head and the realisation that the only shit I need to deal with from now on in London is mine and Lola's.

FOG...

I'm lost in a fog this week, so apologies if the blog isn't up to much. I feel like one of the subjects in these photos: moving in a barely discernable blur at warp speed.

{photos: Alexey Titarenko's City of Shadows series via Them Thangs}

LYELL SPRING...

The spring Lyell lookbook is up online. I have one solitary top from Lyell that I bought three years ago in the New York shop. I still love it and wear it all the time, so I clearly need more Lyell and can easily work out some kind of cost per wear expenditure justification ratio.

WHAT I DID DO*...

*If I'm forced into telling people about my blog, I assure them that I don't just go on about what I did at the weekend; that hopefully I offer some kind of interesting and creative content. But here I am doing just that, because I had the best time last night - and because my birthweek is speeding up at such a rate that I need a place to record it.

To begin the celebrations of the week of my birth, we met up at Dalston Superstore, then went to Club Motherfucker. I had to drag myself out of bed to get there, having spent the day nursing a hangover, so turned up looking slightly disheveled. Handily (ha) they had manicurists from Wah Nails giving free manicures, so I ended up with blood red nails and what looks like blobs of caviar decorating my nails. It's quite understated actually, but I can't stop picking at it.

The highlight of the night was very definitely Pope Joan's set. Take a roomful of people ready to be slightly underwhelmed and then proceed to blow their minds. I don't think I've ever congratulated a drummer before. I want to see them live again (it doesn't really come across listening on myspace.) But they're really good.

We shall not speak of shattered dreams or of childhood heroes, of Lady Miss Kier's DJ set, which I had been so excited about. A few views of Groove Is In The Heart and I'll have forgotten all about it. I was not "thrilled with satisfaction", that's for sure. But I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt (as she was really sweet) and I'll guess that she might have been on the sauce beforehand (weren't we all).

*To complete this terribly pedestrian post about my weekend I even have crappy IPhone photos. (Forgive me.)

WOWWOWWOW...

I'm not the sort of person who bandies superlatives around too much; if I was ever to say you look fabulous darling it would be because I really meant it.

This morning I saw Roberto Rubalcava's work on Feaverish Photography blog and immediately went to his portfolio, where words like hopelessly captivating and spellbinding flew straight into my mind. The light, just look at the light...




{photos courtesy of Roberto Rubalcava - used with permission}

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A SUFFRAGETTE...

And aren't you glad about that? Yes, it's International Women's Day again. What, you didn't know? I try to mention it each year here on the blog because it passes by largely unnoticed in this country. There are some who say we don't even need one anymore, that enough progress has been made. It's been around since 1910, yet the first I heard of it was when I lived in Italy and men kept coming up to me, giving me branches of mimosa and saying congratulations. Apparently in 2006 I was oh, a little bitter about the lack of awareness of the day, but now I'm happy just to raise a glass to Kathryn Bigelow, first ever female recipient of the best director Oscar (The Hurt Locker was completely brilliant) and to celebrate some of my favourite women.

{photo credits mostly unknown. Simone de Beauvoir, Sofia Coppola (ph: Andrew Durham), my mum and granny (my photo), Diana Vreeland, the leopard lady (my photo), Anna Karina, Audrey Hepburn, Louise Bourgeois (ph: Mapplethorpe), Jane Birkin}

DVN...

When I am older and richer and perhaps a little bit wiser, I shall wear Dries Van Noten.

If one more person asks me why I'm not in Paris for fashion week...No I am not. I am clearly here, in London with an internet connection and roughly zero justification or funds to send myself to Paris for a week. But I know a lot of people who are, so have a good time and you'll tell me all about it, yes? (Secret admission: fashion shows are a bit too stressful and overwhelming for me these days. Not the shows themselves, just the hoopla surrounding them. Style.com from the comfort of my home is fine with me.)

{pic from Style.com}

SO NOW I'M ALONE, NOW I CAN THINK FOR MYSELF...

It's been too long since I did an '80s video post. Unfortunately there was no official video made for Friends Are Electric, but we can just sit and imagine how amazing it would have been.

GOOD MORNING...

I just thought I should let you know that my toenails are painted in Chanel's Orange Fizz, the sun is shining, the birds are singing.

Therefore, it must be March.

{photo taken in my street last year - the cherry blossoms are only weeks away...}

SUNLIGHT...

Sessun spring/summer 10. I noticed Liberty had a small selection of Sessun stock the other day. (Though me being me, I'll probably go off it now you can get it easily here. I like the thrill of the chase.)

THOSE DAYS...

You know those days when you wish you had a friend like Chloe Sevigny so you could just hang around in her kitchen drinking tea, have a laugh and maybe try on all her clothes?

{Chloe Sevigny in her apartment, in Apartamento magazine a while ago, with her long hair, which I quite miss, though I like her new short hair too.}

SIGNALS...

The other day Gracie told me (approvingly) that I dress like a lesbian, which was something I had never considered. It's true that I often dress in quite an androgynous way: flat lace up boots or Oxfords, socks, ankle length trousers, cardigans - basically it's all A.P.C.'s fault that I end up looking like a 1950s University professor.

But that's just what I like and feel comfortable in - I'm always ripping excess bows and embellishments off otherwise perfect garments. It's also true that I never, ever dress to try and attract men. I sort of maybe think that if I were to go out with my boobs cantilevered into a slaggy dress, not only would I feel extremely stupid and uncomfortable, but I'd be likely to attract the type of man I wouldn't have the slightest bit of interest in. But I never thought I might be inadvertently attracting women instead, not that I have anything against lesbians whatsoever; some of them are great friends of mine (see above).

But it's funny to think that maybe if you don't have the same visual references, read the same blogs, have the same mini obsessions with perfectly cut, well made clothes, or tend to wander round the Margaret Howell shop oohing and ahhing, you might get a whole different message. The day following Gracie's observation I went to Topshop and happened to buy a coral pink ruffle necked babydoll top, a floral print tiered chiffon babydoll top (not on the site) and a cotton empire line dress that looks like a Victorian christening gown. The two incidents were completely unrelated.

It's funny what messages come across. Recently I was talking to this Indian bloke and asked him if there was anything I should be careful to avoid wearing to an Indian wedding I'm going to. I was thinking perhaps certain colours have different connotations in other cultures, that sort of thing. His response? "Just try not to dress too much like a chav and you should be ok." My response? "Excuse me, whaaa, I mean, have you, like, actually met me?" Later I looked down at my See by Chloe spike heeled, studded ankle boots and realised that fashion can be a dangerous game when you're dealing with the uninitiated.

{photo 1: my daily shoe rotation - random lace up boots, Prada oxfords, Sessun desert boots. photo 2: girly Topshop haul to be worn with baggy rolled up jeans and a snarl}

POST PARIS...

I finally have time to sit down and get my thoughts together about my trip to Paris the weekend before last. The competition, if you recall, was held by the Regional Tourism Committee of Paris Ile-de-France for their campaign Le Nouveau Paris. My entry was posted here and in it I described in detail what my perfect weekend in Paris would be. To have won something (when the last thing you won was a disco dancing competition in 1986) and to have the prize for that something be a weekend in Paris with a friend (when in 1986 the prize was a packet of crisps and a 7" single) - well, I was pretty chuffed really.













Myself and my friend, plus three other bloggers and their respective guests, set off early on the Saturday morning from St. Pancras. We were accompanied by lovely Pauline from We Are Social who looked after us all weekend, along with the also lovely Marjorie from Nouveau-Monde DDB who we met in Paris. We were picked up at the Gare du Nord by a lipstick pink bus (the colour was probably unintentional, but I appreciated it anyway.)

From then on it was a blur of eating, drinking and roaming until we (ok, I) crashed out on the train on Sunday night. There were lots of exhibitions we could have gone to in the afternoons, but since I go to Paris quite often and we didn't have much time, my friend and I took the opportunity to catch up with friends while we were there. So on the cultural side of things Z and I scored nul points, although we did spend about two hours in my favourite Pharmacie (on the corner of rue des Archives, behind BHV), gawping at beauty products which perform functions that simply don't exist in this country (bio lifting sculpting anti-cellulite serum hydration for the bit of skin behind your left ear.) Can't get enough of it.
One other thing I was secretly thrilled about was that when a French person asked me directions to rue St Honore (in French) I somehow managed to give them (in French) and the person, instead of looking confused, thanked me and went in the direction I had told them to go in. This is called progress.

It's always lovely to be in Paris, but what was different this time was that instead of grabbing the odd snack here and there as I usually do, we all went to a lovely restaurant for a proper lunch, then again for dinner. As David pointed out in his post, the gap between lunch and dinner seemed to close further each day. I'm still dreaming about this steak I had at Le Saut du Loup. The food must have had a lasting effect on all of us, because last week I bumped into one of the other bloggers from the trip, Jenny, in Selfridges Food Hall, where we were both buying Pierre Herme macaroons. I haven't caught David or Marc, our other blogging companions, lurking around the macaroon section yet, but it may only be a matter of time.