TRES CUTE...

There's now a proper website for the Lou Doillon for Lee Cooper jeans collection I was going on about before. It's done like Lou's inspiration notebook with her handwritten text explaining why/how she did it, photos taped in etc. Fun to have a click around...

I still haven't been to see any of the clothes in reality. I've got a funny feeling they only look good on Lou. As for the rest of us I'm not so sure...that includes the model in the lookbook (I'm turning into the lookbook model police).

{photo: Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin}

I THINK YOU'RE GOING TO LIKE THIS...

I wrote this piece for Gridskipper about film locations in London. Don't worry, it's not all Bridget Jones and Four Weddings/Notting Hill - though those bastards do seem determined to redraw the entire capital to fit their sanitised, ethnically cleansed, sappy vision of how London should be. Hey, people seem to love it. HATE THOSE FILMS. (The most insulting thing anyone has ever (innocently) said to me was that the character of Bridget Jones reminded her of me.)

There are so many things I wish I had known before; like the location of Holly Golightly's apartment in Breakfast at Tiffany's (East 71st street.) Of course I've stood outside the NYC Tiffany's window holding a pretzel and a coffee, wearing a black Givenchy evening gown at 5am. Kind of. Without the coffee or the pretzel or the dress or the 5am.

Read the London piece here. Just don't EVER go to Thamesmead.

TWELVE STEPS...

1. Have hair trimmed to lessen cavewoman/Medusa effect
2. Reluctantly dye hair (au naturelle being invaded by white sprouters = depressing)
3. Have a facial - (eh, grr, maybe, still undecided - do they even make a difference?)
4. Have a pedicure at The Cowshed
5. Stop eating wheat for a month
6. Go somewhere to find sunshine/warmth asap (Italy)
7. Buy loads of flowers: ranunculus/tulips/peonies when they're ready
8. Go and sit under the magnolia trees in the park when they're in bloom
9. Attempt to wear other than wide legged cords or baggy sailor trousers every day
10.Bribe people to bring back French pharmacy booty from Paris
11.Have a mooch around the weekend market for old books and clocks
12.Try to believe that using make up to achieve the fresh, natural look isn't cheating.

UGH...

Am sick. Back soon...

I BUYED YOU A EASTER EGG...

...but I eated it.
Here's some blossom instead (from an Easter when the skies weren't alternating between snow and jumbo hailstones).

*photos from my flickr nature set

GOODMAN-SOHR HOUSE(S) STALKER!...

Oh my god, no.
I just spent ages (hours) doing the most enormous post I've ever done, about the Goodman-Sohr house(s) being featured in loads of magazines and I connected the dots through them all - (and their wedding) with pictures - then I accidentally deleted it. It's gone. So suffice it to say that I have been meaning for years to post these pictures from an old issue of Elle Decoration of Genifer Goodman's SF apartment; from before she was married to Benjamin-Sohr. I believe it is the only time these pictures (and this apartment) have made their way onto the interwebs, but her other homes have (rightly so) gained quite a following. Pick up the trail at Designer's Library and Frolic while I go and stick my hand that pressed delete in the oven.

I WAS BORN...

...and then they put me in a laundry basket?

I hadn't seen this photo before but I love it - with the light leak and my dad's slippers beside the bed. I just noticed that my foot looks like a hand - glad I grew out of that one.

When it is your birthday, you are allowed to:
Post indulgent baby photos of yourself on your blog.
Eat breakfast after lunch time.
Make all your friends go out and drink loads of wine on a week night.
Not open mail if it's not clearly a birthday card.
Have midday naps.
Have afternoon naps.

1,2,3,4,5...

photo by me

1. I'm having some Paris nostalgia on Flickr. It's a good nostalgia, the kind where you revel in reverie, knowing that you could pop over there if you really wanted to. Did you know Paris is only 200 odd miles away from London?

2. They say writing well is the best revenge.

3. I have achieved closure on the plaid top issue (see below). Thank you Paul & Joe sample sale - 30 quid! I'll post a picture soon.

4. Gridskippage:
Cute Fluffy Animals Want You to Visit Them

My previous piece on Independent Boutique Cinemas in London got lost in the ether for a week; then it was published without the date being updated, not on the front page but buried under 20 pages of content. So feel free to click on it a few hundred times. (Julia I think you'll like #2)

5. The celebrations to mark the week of my birth (yes, week, why what's unusual about that?) have begun...drinks at Tate Modern members bar and a tipsy reel around the Man Ray/Picabia/Duchamp exhibit last night...

FRUMPY, LUMPY AND GRUMPY...

I am engaged in grumpery.

The a.p.c. plaid tunic does not look charming on me - it looks like a Laura Ashley maternity smock from 1984 - and not in a good, ironic way. The plaid makes me think of a dressing gown my father once had - again in the 80s - and various home furnishings I remember people having in the 80s. This, in turn has caused an identity crisis - as in, the clothes that once seemed made for me, look crap on me. So, like, who am I now?

I didn't like the clothes as modelled by the model I felt looked ill. I liked them on the model I could identify with so I bought something but I looked crap - unlike the model. It didn't look poufy and awful on her but I'd like to see how many bulldog clips she's got hiding round the back there.

So maybe I should have bought something from the "wan" section and I might have been pleasantly surprised. It may seem as if I've spent the entire week thinking about catalogues and plaid tunics but I really haven't. I had many mundane things to attend to and the Fedex man arriving with my new top was supposed to cheer me up and make me feel all spiffy again. Oh, how the opposite was true when I put on that top and looked in the mirror. Even with a belt - no.

This concludes the spring/summer 08 portion of the a.p.c obsession report. If anyone needs me I'll be shopping in the elasticated waistband old biddy section of Marks & Spencer.

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!

SHOPPING EMBARGO NOW OUT THE WINDOW COMPLETELY...

Remember when I was a bit miffed about the spring a.p.c. catalogue not being up to its usual standards?
Well hello summer, hello healthy looking model, hello my new plaid tunic.

Oops.

(the summer stuff will be online on Thursday apparently. I know this because I asked, not because I'm in league with or getting kickbacks from a.p.c. Hmm, maybe if I sent Jean Touitou that lovely poem I wrote about him I'd get a little discount? Free shipping?)

SELF IMPOSED SHOPPING EMBARGO IS RELAXED SLIGHTLY ...

Because Princesse TamTam would probably go out of business if I stopped buying all my underwear, swimwear and pjs from them = JUSTIFIED EXPENDITURE.

(tree swing and poppies not included)

p.s. look at Audrey!
*p.p.s. That Heimstone dress: disappointing in reality.

A BIRDS EYE VIEW...

Today is International Women's Day which I had never even heard of until I lived in Italy. On this particular day men kept coming up to me in the street, handing me sprigs of mimosa and saying congratulations. I blogged nostalgically (and somewhat bitterly!) about it here. But come on, congratulations on being a woman. No wonder it never really caught the public imagination over here, what with our mammas not being quite so revered.

But! The Birds Eye View Film Festival celebrates women in film. Clowning Glories looks at women in film before 1930 and Screwball Women at comediennes of Hollywood. But it's not just the acting; screenwriters and directors are also featured, many, let's face it - most - whose work has been forgotten over the years.

But ze best I have saved for last. Tomorrow at the ICA, as part of the festival, is Fashion Films. They'll show one of the short films Bella Freud and John Malkovich made together (I don't know which one). Then Wendybird, the short Ellen von Unwerth made for Erin Fetherston starring Kirsten Dunst (the photo above is a still from it.) Then there's a panel discussion about how fashion and film work together chaired by Penny Martin from showstudio. The panel: Bella Freud, Toyin and (every fashion bloggers' favourite) photographer Wendy Bevan.

If you can't get to the ICA you can watch the very charming little film Wendybird here.

Oops, I almost forgot: Mimosa per tutte le donne, from flickrers around the world...

BOOKS AND THANKS...

It's time for a new book. I finished A Confederacy of Dunces a while ago and really loved the way the characters were drawn. In fact, I must be careful as I do tend to get so engrossed in a book that I take on aspects of the characters themselves. This will only make sense if you've read the book; but when I found my local, usually lovely and quiet cafe full of yummy mummies (loudly discussing breast pumps) and their screaming babies, the thought that came was; "This cacophony of howling infants is interminable." Hello, I am Ignatius J. Reilly.

And Oh! Lily Bart, poor Lily Bart. The House of Mirth swept me up into the sad story of Lily Bart to such an extent that her presence is still with me two months later. Yes, I know she is a fictional character in a book written over 100 years ago.
I am but a sensitive flower.

So I don't know what I'll read next from all your amazing recommendations. Perhaps The History of Love, since two of my favourite blogeuses tipped me off on that one. Several narrators, that's a good sign. There'll be less chance of character overlap.

I want to say a big thank you to Jo who not only gave me a copy of Domino magazine but also a fantastic huge metal letter A for my collection AND a copy of Danish Bolig magazine which I'd mentioned as well. And to Paola for including me in her You Make My Day. (My picks are here)

What I did to deserve such lovely readers I will never know...

{the photo is a photo I took of a photo in Madrid. I couldn't make out the photographer's name but I love it - the girl is reading Freud at the bus stop}

INSPIRATION WITHOUT WORDS...

Top: from designsponge
Bottom: Heimstone le smoking dress (Paris in a dress)

THE CONFORMIST...

...Yes

THAT WAS FUN...

I joined in with A Photo A Day A Month on Flickr. It was a good challenge to take a photo every day and upload it; though sometimes I got bored of myself and couldn't believe what shite I was putting on my flickr stream. My photos for the month (or 27 days - I bunked off some) are here. Come on, how restrained was I with Lola, my ever willing subject?

This is my fave, suitably springlike...