PROFIT AND LOSS...

Ohhh, I want to stamp my feet and fling myself into a ball on the sofa. Because I saw these RetroSuperFuture Lucia Havana sunglasses in Liberty but couldn't justify the £90 price. And now they've put the price up to £130. Why is life so desperately cruel and unfair, I ask you.

I'm over it now.

AWKWARD IN AVALON...

A bit of awkward photoboothing on a Thursday morning, wearing my Toujours Toi & Family Affairs Avalon dress for Nina, Queen of the Awkward Photobooth (TM).

 Below is the press text I wrote for the spring/summer 10 collection, Coup de Foudre, which the dress is from:

Coup de Foudre is the name of the spring summer 2010 collection from Toujours Toi & Family Affairs. Coup de Foudre means a sudden, intense feeling of love or quite literally, a bolt of lightning. The feeling of being struck down by love, everything is heightened and colors are saturated in the heat of a hazy summer’s day. Evoking the decadence of the late seventies, Roxy Music, louche elegance. Mia Farrow as Daisy Buchanan at Gatsby’s garden party – everyone dressed in linen on a golden afternoon. The bold colors of Godard’s Pierrot le Fou and Une Femme est Une Femme translate into the fevered hothouse flower colors cut in simple, unfussy shapes. Inspired by vacation in the long, hot days of high summer.

The Avalon dress – a black cotton voile maxi sundress, evokes the thirties via the seventies. The easy elegance of the Guinevere jumpsuit in leopard or blue rose printed silk. Feminine button down dresses paired with the masculine linen Northfork jacket. The yellow woven cube cotton gives the otherwise sweet Cecilia and Crimson and Clover dresses a graphic element. Natural fabrics – linen takes on more character as you wear it; and the lightest weight silk, poplin and voile for wafting around in the heat.

SUBWAY...

I almost forgot to mention that Bruce Davidson's incredible, no - stunning Subway series of photographs is on display at Tate Modern. I didn't know about it beforehand (in fact, there's barely a mention of it on the Tate site), but seeing these up close was well worth an afternoon of being surrounded by hoards of extremely irritating French schoolchildren brandishing clipboards all over the place. Taken between 1980 and 1985, the photographs show a motley selection of dodgy looking characters, working girls, graffiti and grime - taking some of the shots caused Bruce Davidson to almost get shot in the process; talk about being in the moment. It's like stepping back in time to when the Subway was something you were advised to avoid - the pictures almost pulse with danger - but the results have a real beauty. The closest to danger on the NY subway I ever got was that one time I took the G train and began to wish I wasn't laden down with Barneys shopping bags. Danger is my middle name. There's also a book of this series of photographs - and the foreword is only written by Fab 5 Freddy. It's going to be really hard not to buy it now that I know that.

You must go and see these photos if you're in London - the colours and depth of the prints is absolutely amazing - not that I'm any kind of print connoisseur, but even I can see that. They're also showing Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon (Level 3, Poetry and Dream, room 2). The Tate seems to have dozed off at publicizing the smaller works being shown, so there - I've done it for them/it. Don't bother with the other rooms, they'll only be full of belligerent Euro teens.

{Photos - Bruce Davidson - at Tate Modern, Level 5, States of Flux, room 8}

90s VIDEO SUNDAY...

I can't stop watching this video (but it gives me unfortunate visualisations of Damon Albarn being drunk and unable to, um perform). In any case, I miss Justine - why isn't there anyone as cool as her?

PURSUITS OF SPRING...

There are certain things I do every spring, that I don't do during the winter. I start to buy flowers and plants. I leave the house willingly, often with camera in hand.

I go for cream teas, afternoon teas and every other kind of teas. And this, thank you iphoto, solves the long standing mystery of why I always gain 10 pounds by the beginning of every summer.

{photos from Aprils 07, 08 and 09}

SIMPLE PLEASURES...

I can't actually stop putting this Liberty/Merci tape (sold out now I think) on pretty much everything I own.

BEIGE...

This morning I found myself thinking about the traditional fashion press vs. Tavi as blogger target practice debate. I've read a lot of guff from affronted journalists and actually not much from fashion bloggers. Maybe I just haven't been looking in the right places, or maybe it doesn't matter much - the affronted wailing of journalists could be considered death throes, as they topple off their front row seats. Apparently some fashion journalists believe that a blogger can't report on clothes as well as them, because bloggers don't know about fashion, the history of fashion and they aren't trained in it. Well, what if they do and are? I've met people who had fantastic jobs at magazines and been stunned to discover that they've only been interested in fashion for a couple of years, or that they're really into 18th century literature and only took that job at Vogue because their mum/aunt/sister got them in. Equally, I know people who didn't have the right connections, confidence or luck (edit: or private income, thank you Rose) but who are a font of knowledge - and blogging is the perfect medium for them if they have a strong point of view. The thing about magazines is that all the personality is removed from the writing to fit the voice of the magazine. Then you end up with an article that tells you there were a lot of beige coats shown in Paris, with little enthusiasm or insight into why.

So I really don't buy the notion that all the people sitting at shows and writing about them are experts. What I do understand is the access they have and the relationships they're able to build with designers which might allow them to give a different spin. Cathy Horyn (unarguably an expert!) does this brilliantly when she writes of sitting down to lunch at Alaia's studio, for example. But often the old guarded elitism stops that from happening - or the fear of giving too much away and spoiling the mystery (a less cynical way of putting it.) I think it can be done in a way that enhances, and it will be. Garance Dore's recent videos from fashion week were great at giving you a window seat into the world of fashion month and I'm hoping - since she now has the access, that she'll continue in a way that lets us see more about the clothes as well.

ON A SIMILAR THEME...

Hello Lover.

THOMSEN...

To be filed under why on earth did I not know about Thomsen before? Must be losing my touch. I hate to post stuff people will see on other blogs so you'll do that thing of momentarily not realising which blog you're looking at, but...

...come on! Parisian label making perfectly cut shirts (oh, and shirtdresses) + Liberty prints + Caroline de Maigret in the campaign = major swooning attack on a Saturday morning and frenzied perusing of the Eurostar timetable. (They have a shop in rue de Turenne, which I probably walked straight past the last time I was in Paris.)

SO EASILY SWAYED...

All the things the internet has made my brain think I want during the past month or so:

Hair like Anouck's in the Aubin & Wills catalogue:

An Amanda Wachob tattoo - I mean, I'm in the market for a new tattoo, but those are insane, in the best way.

Japan! I must cross the threshold of always saying next year, next year. Everyone's tempting me with cherry blossoms and prison themed restaurants.

Estelle & Thild Ecorganic skin cream. (It's both ecological and organic you see.) And er, it has really nice packaging and contains things one would think are really nourishing and good for knackered old bags like me, who eat entire chocolate Easter bunnies in one day instead of meals. I want the eye balm but there's no picture of it on their website. These are pretty though.

THE GENTLEWOMAN...

Thoughtful, intelligent, calm, rational, focused, refreshing; you want to plonk it in the hands of people who think you're a silly airhead for being interested in fashion and go, "There. That's why. OKAY?" Those are the notes I wrote after first reading The Gentlewoman. It's been hanging around in my flat for a week or so and I've found myself picking it up to read again and again. Yes, to read, not flick through aimlessly as more brain cells wither.

No hyperbole, no fawning, no socialites for the sake of it, nothing wacky, it's not trying to be aspirational or whip you up into a frenzy about jumpsuits.

I'd be interested to know if someone of 20 appreciates it as much as I do, seeing women featured that have been getting on with doing good things in fashion and the arts, and still are, for as long as I've been in it: Phoebe Philo, Julie Verhoeven, Alice Rawsthorn, Jenny Holzer, hey, even Princess Julia.

And another thing - I now need a buttercup yellow Citroen 2CV so if someone could sort that out for me. Oh, and a vineyard or two and all the clothes Sara Perez wears in the feature on her. {Gracias}.

{photos not scans, but at least I didn't take them with my phone.}