I'M INTO - HEATWAVE EDITION...

I'm really into these chambray twill (is there such a thing?) high waisted '70s shorts that belonged to my mother. I've been wearing them on and off since I was about 13 and with the recent freak hot weather here, I've been wearing them a lot - strictly in the garden or on the beach you understand, although they're pretty good to wear under short dresses around London. It's also not lost on me that I should get into them as much as possible until I... can't get into them anymore! A few more years and that back hem might have low hanging bum cheek cleavage below it - upon which moment I shall pass them on to some lithe legged fifteen year old and let them live on...

MIRAMARE...

Castello di Miramare, on the Gulf of Trieste. It was completed in 1860 for the Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian and his wife Charlotte of Belgium. In 1864 they left to become Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlota of Mexico. In 1867 Maximilian was assassinated in Mexico and Charlotte returned to Castello di Miramare, but she 'slowly lost her reason' and was taken back to Belgium by her family. Such a tragic story and such a short time they had at this spectacularly idyllic and peaceful location.

A MODERN FAIRYTALE ENDING...

Some of you might remember my story about my granny's Wedgwood teapot and some may not have retained that crucial info. Go on, go back and read it, it's really long. But basically, it was a charming tale of old world courtesy and civility involving my granny breaking her Wedgwood teapot, the design of which had been discontinued, thus rendering her extensive tea service incomplete. After a number of polite exchanges, she was miraculously sent another teapot free of charge, due to the thoughtfulness of a Wedgwood employee. The story ended with me lamenting the modern world and noting that Wedgwood had recently gone into liquidation, had been bought out by a foreign equity group and all production was moved to China. I doubted that the lid, which had been broken recently (ahem, not by me) could ever be replaced, or that I would even get a response to a polite email to Wedgwood these days.

BUT THEN.

The other day I got a comment on my Teapot Story post, which I'd written almost exactly a year ago to the day. A very kind person (please tell me who you are so I can thank you properly) tipped me off that there was a teapot lid for sale on ebay. I bid. I won. I'm guessing there aren't that many people searching for a 1950s/'60s Wedgwood Summer Sky teapot lid, sans teapot out there?

The lid arrived today - as I ripped open the package like a greedy child I felt sure it would be the wrong lid, it wouldn't fit, or would be the wrong colour.

But it wasn't! My teapot is now justly re-crowned. I feel sure that had my granny known the Internet existed before she died, she would thank it now and marvel at the magic of it.

I raise my teacup to you Internet - you're too good to me - and what a perfect 21st century ending to the 'ol teapot story.

THE POST THAT CHANGED DIRECTION...

© Bettmann/CORBIS

These photos I found of Jackie Kennedy and Lee Radziwill en vacances have been a huge inspiration to me for the summer, but I hadn't posted them because maddeningly, eye ball ripping out annoyingly it is IMPOSSIBLE to find credits for them and I really try not to post pictures that aren't mine without a legitimate source. So please, if you know, tell me who the photographer is and I will stop being wracked with guilt. (Edit - I got one! Thank you kind reader.) From the looks of it, some of them were taken in Greece Amalfi in the '60s and I just love them, so I am going to post them in the hopes that someone can shed some light on the original source, i.e. not The Fashion Spot.

© Bettmann/CORBIS

Do they not just make you want to go on holiday immediately with friends and family, befriend someone with a yacht, eat calamari and drink rosé, dive off rocks into deep green sea and emanate a glow of health and well-being while wearing a headscarf, capri pants, Greek sandals and sunglasses? I could possibly do without the being followed everywhere by ten security agents and the big "Welcome" signs everywhere I went or indeed, being followed by the paparazzi that probably took these photos, but hey, why kill the dream?

It's the slightly sporty/preppy clothes that get me - Lee Radziwill was effortlessly stylish in those days - and that look: the slim cropped trousers, a shell tank, sandals and a shoulder bag are exactly what I want to wear this summer.

I've also been hugely inspired by the book, Elegance, The Birth of Fashion Photography about the Seeberger brothers, (I bought it used for £20) who began photographing the beau monde at places like Biarritz and Deauville in the 1920s - and again it's the sporty looks that get me - like these two in Hermes:

And this girl, whose photo (taken again by the Seeberger brothers in 1939) has made it round all the fashion blogs due to the sheer modernism of her outfit, which wouldn't look out of place on the Celine catwalk today. Sadly, in the caption I noticed it said 'Film actress Corinne Luchaire, (1921 - 1950)' so I wondered what had happened to her. And now I will destroy all your illusions because well, she was a Nazi collaborator and died of tuberculosis at the age of 28 while serving a ten year sentence of 'degradation nationale' in France. (Oh dear, read more of the sorry tale here and here if you want to...) How do I bounce back from that into fashion inspiration? Talk about killing the dream, sorry. But if you read about her, she didn't stand much of a chance, being brought up around the Nazis. But I'm so shocked (I just looked it up as I was writing). Being pretty and having amazing taste in clothes does not excuse a lethal in her case, lack of a moral compass. When I look at the picture closely now, you can see something very mixed up in her eyes, that I might have previously mistaken for sultry allure.

I don't think I can make it back to sailor pants after that. Leave it for another post.

THE TEAPOT STORY...

Over Christmas my dad started telling me this story about my grandmother's Wedgwood teapot. (Stay with me.) My granny had this set of Wedgwood china that was for every day use - it contained everything from eggcups to cake plates to butter dishes, gravy boats and toast racks - all in the Summer Sky design, which is light blue with a white border. I think she bought it in the late 1950s. Anyway, one day after years of use, disaster struck and the teapot was broken. So my granny wrote to Wedgwood asking if there was any way they could replace the teapot, as she knew the Summer Sky line had been discontinued. She received a very polite letter from the secretary of the managing director saying unfortunately there was nothing they could do as there was no leftover stock. My granny was left without the most important part of her tea set...

A couple of weeks later my granny received another letter from the managing director's secretary saying that she had been walking through the factory and had happened to notice the factory workers on their tea break (imagine - a tea break!) who were using a teapot exactly as my granny had described. She went on to say that the workers had now been given a different teapot to use, and they were in the process of cleaning and polishing the other one, which would be sent to her. A week later the teapot arrived in a box. There was no invoice with it so my granny rang up to ask what she owed them and they said, oh no, we couldn't charge you for it, it's been used.

The most amazing thing about this (that my dad didn't know or forgot) is that my granny's Summer Sky tableware is what I use every day - I've been using that teapot for years and I didn't even know the story. The odd piece of Summer Sky does occasionally get broken but I've always been able to replace it by searching online. (I once had to tell a very sweet old lady from Florida that the Wedgwood Summer Sky cigarette box her husband brought back from the U.K. after his stint as a G.I. in WWII, that they were now selling online, was in fact a butter dish. They'd been keeping their cigs in it all those years!)

The lid of my/my granny's teapot got broken a couple of years ago and I haven't found a replacement yet - it's glued back together but not very well. I don't think an attempt to contact Wedgwood would produce quite the same results these days - especially as Wedgwood went into administration in 2009 and was bought out by a U.S. equity group who moved the workforce to China. No, I won't even try. To me, this story simply serves as a charming reminder of a lost world.

{I cannot download any pictures from my camera, so here's some Summer Sky in action. You can see the teapot on the shelf in the last photo...And now if you'll excuse me I am going to throw my camera out of the window.}

AMITIÉ...

A friend recently told me I'm "a meeter", which sat a little strangely with me at first. But somehow, in the past few months - it's true - I've turned into a meeter. I couldn't tell you how this happened or how to go about it, because I don't know. All I know is that I've made more friends in the past six months than I did in the previous few years. On trips to Paris I used to spend most of the time alone; now I rarely am. Even if I think I will be, someone interesting will usually strike up a conversation with me.

That perhaps explains how I got chatting to Tito - my companion on the Eurostar. I have actually never had a conversation with the person sitting next to me on the Eurostar before - it's just not that kind of train. I'm usually a pretty disinterested plane or train neighbour. I have been known to put headphones on (without pressing play) or fall into an instant faux sleep to avoid making conversation. But for some reason I didn't this time.

Tito started talking to me in French - I thought he was French until I got a bit stuck and he switched seamlessly to English with an American accent. We got chatting - he told me why his French is so good and some other very interesting stories. He said he had lunch and dinner at La Rotonde every day when he was in Paris - and never went far from Montparnasse. We talked about this and that, he showed me the website about his father, which I couldn't look at too closely on my iPhone with the train going in and out of tunnels. By the time we reached Paris I felt like I had a new friend. I think I invited myself to have lunch at La Rotonde. I had been to Le Select once, but never Le Dome, La Coupole or La Rotonde. It seemed perfectly normal to stroll along the side of the Jardin du Luxembourg on a bright winter's day, past the street where I mistakenly put myself in the absolute beginners class at the Alliance Francaise and wasted two weeks and a couple of hundred euros re-learning how to say the alphabet in French. Up to the junction of boulevards Raspail and Montparnasse and into the dark, cosy confines of La Rotonde. Here - pictures will explain better than words...

LAST SATURDAY...

I spent a leisurely five hours dining on baby octopus and converting family members to the ways of the Aperol spritz. Afterward, the plan had been to convene with a friend in a damp old cave under the embankment, but the intense odour of cheese emanating from inside was so strong, and perplexing, that it forced us into a retreat. Over the bridge to the land of afternoon ballroom dancing, where I stood against the wall in the foyer watching my friend dance. I watched an eighty year old lady do the paso doble with her cardigan and tried to politely refuse waltzing with a young boy wearing a tux and fedora. He was insistent and apparently an expert. He then clutched me stiffly and jerkily pushed me around the floor like a mop, into pillars and other people waltzing past. Nothing to do but grin and bear it, try not to laugh hysterically until I was deposited with a thud back by the wall. Then a quick spilled drink at the film place - lightning fast reflexes rescuing iphones from death by prosecco. Home for a quick change and onto a real ballroom this time, but this time the ratio of cyclists to pedestrians was completely reversed and I found myself disappointed at the meagre sprinkling of "proper" transvestites.

I didn't take any photos and then Sunday was quite crap.

60 HOUR MAKEOVER...

I used to think my aunt and uncle's house was weird. It was built in the sixties and was completely different to any other houses I knew in my childhood. The ground floor living area was open plan with a wooden floor and a huge white modular shelving unit on wheels dissecting the middle of it. (Obviously "modular shelving unit" wasn't in my vocabulary back then.) All the furniture was straight and angular. The windows were huge and looked out onto a pretty little wood. I remember thinking that their kitchen looked like a spaceship. They had a huge terrarium and their bath was bright yellow. Now that I'm a grown up, I can see that their house wasn't weird; it was completely fucking amazing and they were way cooler than I ever gave them credit for when I was nine.*

When the house was sold, I came into possession of their Danish midcentury dining table, which I swiftly proceeded to destroy by spilling various beverages all over it. The varnish had also gone orange (cannot.stand.orange.toned.wood.) over time. I felt a bit bad about ruining the table, so I covered it with a tablecloth and forgot about it - once every few years getting quotes for refinishing it, which were more expensive than the cost of a new table. I put the tablecloth back on and my aunt and uncle continued to convey slight disapproval from the afterlife.

{The offending article}

Until yesterday the day before yesterday last Monday last week when I got a very strong friend to help me drag it outside. (In the pictures the leaves which make it roughly double the size are tucked in.) After many, many hours days of stripping off all the old varnish, then sanding the stains out, covering it with bin liners weighted with laundry pegs every time it rained, then oiling, then oiling again, then oiling again (had lost the will to live, never mind the instructions) and buffing, I completed my first only ever table restoration project. Then I had to get it back inside. Then sand it where a few drops of rain fell on it, then oil it again. Twice. And then it looked too perfect so I sanded it a bit here and there to fuck it up a bit.

{Ta da}

I kind of sort of know in my heart that I liked how it looked much better before I oiled it, when it was all stripped and raw, but I'm sticking my fingers in my ears and going LALALA so I can't hear those thoughts because I'm never doing that again.

{*In the interests of honesty when I was 9 I thought they were cool already because their cats were called Tabitha and Jessica and I had only met cats called things like Lucky and Sooty before. Tabitha was a boy.}

**Overuse of strikethroughs = what happens when you write a post in draft about something you haven't finished doing yet.

TO WANDER...

Travel is what makes me happy and always has done. That sounds trite and perhaps happy is the wrong word. Travel is the thing that keeps me going; it's like fuel. Getting on a plane, arriving somewhere and roaming, discovering new things, just sitting and feeling the atmosphere of a place. Once you know what a place is like, no one can take that away from you. Whatever kind of life slump I've ever been in travelling has pulled me out of it.

When I flew home from India I met some English travellers at Mumbai airport. They were the first non Indians I'd seen apart from our group of friends since boarding the plane at Heathrow on the way over, so that removed my usual social reserve and I got chatting to them. I learned that some of them had been roaming the world for two years.

Classic remark: "I've been wearing these shorts for two years, I just wash 'em in the sea about once a month. You gotta skank 'em out."

Apart from being incredibly deeply tanned and incredibly chilled out, they had a sense of ease not just with each other, but with everyone. I wondered what the boy with the shorts had been like before he left on his two year trip. Another guy had been in the Himalayas for 6 months, staying in villagers' homes. The usual barriers between two English people were dissolved and we passed the time on the plane together like old friends.



Some good friends have also been roaming the world lately. One, I will see next week and I intend to wring out as much as I can glean and vicariously live every story he has to tell about all the places he's been in the last 6 months or so. Another friend is about two months into the most amazing adventure and she's even managed to regularly update a travel blog with beautiful pictures and posts from remote islands and mountains. I have found myself searching "aesthetically pleasing backpacks" a few times after checking in there. It really makes me think, when I'm so excited about others' travels whether I could do it. I travel: I go and visit friends in Europe, spend time in Paris, I love doing that but you can't do it constantly (well I can't). But to put everything you need for a year into a backpack and just go - not knowing how long for or even exactly where - just to discover the parts of the world you haven't yet seen...

Where would you start?

{photo: Greg Kadel}

WHY THE INTERNET IS AMAZING...

Do you remember the coolest thing that ever happened to me? Thanks to Flickr I now know that the exact car still exists, and who the kind man in the photo it belonged to was. (The barrette sporting passenger attempting a Royal wave is moi.)

A comment on the photo, which I posted on Flickr:

"Yes, that particular car still exists in the UK but is off the road at the moment. The driver is Mr Les Frampton who lived just west of London. He bought the car new in 1966 and used it a lot right up to his death in the early 1990s. Les spent a lot of time in Jersey as well as along the South Coast so the picture could have been taken anywhere, although title hints Dorset. He was one of the few Amphicar owners brave enough to use the car in salt water (although that is also the reason it is now off the road !) Looking at some of the detail on the car I would guess the picture was taken around 1971, but could be a few years earlier, he did tell me, but I can't remember, when he changed the whitewall tyres for black wall !"

David Chapman
www.amphicars.com

{N.B. It was taken in 1982 when we were on holiday in Swanage.}

I'll be raising a glass or two to Mr. Frampton today (and Mr. Chapman) - I wonder if he would ever have guessed what a lasting impression driving around in the sea in that beautiful car had on six year old me. (And don't ask, yes I am tempted but lucky for me, I already have pretty much the car of my dreams. It doesn't float as far as I know, but it does speak to me in Japanese.)

{photo credit: my dad}

SODERMALM...

I know my posts on Sweden are coming in dribs and drabs, but it's that time of year. I've been to SO many imaginary parties lately. Anyway, in Stockholm we stayed in Sodermalm, which I'm reliably informed is a bit sort of bohemian and everyone we met up with lived there as well, which was handy. I really loved it and our hotel*, which was housed in an old brewery, backing onto Katarina Church. Our room overlooked the churchyard with a view of the church, which made it all lovely and Narnia like with old fashioned lanterns lit and a dusting of snow.

They also had this amazing breakfast included in the price, where you went down to a little kitchen area in the lobby and helped yourself to coffee, yogurt (why is Scandinavian yogurt so good?), muesli, boiled eggs, rye bread, kalles kaviar, cheese, basically all my favourite things.

The first night I arrived before my friend and decided to go for a little walk around the church at about 10pm. I saw a little hilly cobbled street that looked interesting so walked up it. There were these adorable old yellow houses, all with stars or candles in the windows of course. I couldn't see where the road went at the top because it was so dark. Eventually when I got there I saw a surprise expanse of water, the buildings on the other side all with their windows lit up and a boat coming in towards the shore. It was just one of those breathtaking moments you sometimes get when you explore somewhere you've never been before. I'd had no idea there was water there. Later someone told me that's THE view they always take visitors to see. Then I walked by the church and, as it seemed perfectly safe to do so, through the churchyard, not something I would do anywhere in London late at night. Each plot had its own little lantern lit - this was two days before Lucia and two weeks before Christmas. Every window I saw in Sweden had a light of some sort in it, be it an office or a boat or a home.

It was in Sodermalm I saw the Whyred booties. I shouldn't have tried them on, but oh they were so comfortable straight away but oh, they were so expensive and I was sure I'd seen some similar somewhere high street-y so I left them. (They did look really cute on me and I never say that.) I also adored Granit which can be succinctly described as Swedish Muji. I bought some fairy lights, which are completely superior to fairy lights you get in England. Oh, and a T shirt at Weekday just because.

On our way to Pelikan for dinner we passed the Grandpa shop, which looked really interesting, but was obviously closed. Over dinner, which was suitably candlelit, we started telling ghost stories and by the time we went back to the hotel and someone reminded me that we had read it was used as both a temporary prison and a hospital during a cholera outbreak at different times in history, the cute churchyard view became slightly less Narnia like. Then neither of us could walk down the long corridor alone, which suddenly looked exactly like the one in The Shining. Add to that the Swedish for room is rum, all the signs to this rum, that rum and redrum were terrifying. I won't even try to explain the little jail cell with a tiny stool and a bowl in it half way up the stairs, which we'd previously laughed at. We had to sleep with the TV on.

We never did make it back to Grandpa, but I see that they have the Whyred booties I love in the sale, but only in a size 36 - and Whyred only has them in a 41 so I'm a bit stumped and might have to get the Zara ones, which are only made in brown as far as I know.

*The photos on the hotel website are out of date - it's been redecorated since then and is much cuter.

STANDING ON A BEACH WITH A GUN IN MY HAND...

Precisely 20 years ago I was the 13 year old owner of: classic black 8 hole Dr Martens, Doc Martens shoes, many pairs of Chelsea boots: one black, two oxblood (bought from a riding school to ensure authenticity) a pair of cut down Chelsea shoes and my favourites - a black pair of Chelsea boots I got a cobbler to put 2 inch heels on, thus creating that first flush of teenage smugness at having something everyone at school wanted but couldn't buy and could only attain by blatantly copying my idea. Then there was the biker boot phase, the only ones of the above I still have, and still can't bring myself to wear (too many connotations) or part with. But all of those shoes: practical, authentic, timeless in some ways.

I don't mind the '90s revival at all, as I've mentioned here before. Good memories. But the late '80s - early '90s were my very early teens and a dark place that was. Not your usual half arsed teenage angst. So it may have taken two decades to look at my boot of choice back then as...just boots.

I said I'd never buy them again, but 20 years later I find myself buying a pair of Dr Martens. Don't misunderstand: I groaned when Daisy Lowe started fronting the ad campaign a couple of years ago and Aggy was wearing them with ballgowns. It was kind of like, oh that. Kids today huh? Not going there again. As this summer waned I felt unmoved by any fashion-y shoes and had my eye on a pair of RM Williams dealer boots that I thought might be practical, comfy and low key for winter. But then...

At what's left of Borough Market I'm distracted by a girl's feet - just for half a second. They're Doc Martens boots all right, but more subtle: slightly pointed with a flap of fringed leather at the front. An hour later I'm in the DM shop being told they were from spring summer 09 and are no longer available. And no longer a fashion choice in any way, which is perfect. Later that night in a haze I search the internet for stray leftover stock in my size but can only find them in white. I'm not going that far. Eventually I find a pair in black on an extremely dodgy looking site I've never heard of and take the plunge, giving out my credit card details to what may be an internet crime ring praying on unsuspecting sold out shoe addicts.

Now I can see the connections: 1. my sudden interest in Depeche Mode and watching 101 (which was 20 odd years ago) with them all wearing Doc shoes with white socks. Also, the Anton Corbijn promos from 1987 are really inspiring me. 2. My car CD player breaking, leading to me dragging out a box of cassette tapes from the depths. I haven't started listening to The Cure yet, but it's only a matter of time. As long as I don't get it into my head to complete the journey by indulging in any mind bending recreational pastimes, I don't think re-visiting this era in a purely sartorial sense is such a bad thing.

...Except that I actually feel moderately sick after opening the vault, as it were, and writing this. Don't worry, the Docs will be worn with my Baby I'm a Star dress - I'm not planning to disappear head first into the teenage abyss completely.

LAST NIGHT...

I had a funny realisation last night that Garance and Scott aren't my blog friends I haven't met in real life yet. THEY'RE FAMOUS. Although I'm aware of the rough size of their respective international readerships, with the Internet it's hard to tell - in the space of four years, only one of my friends here in London has even heard of The Sartorialist. All day I heard; "You're going to see the What-ist?" "Gar-who?"

My friend and I first trundled along to Garance's opening in Kingly Street with minutes to spare - it was lovely, the T shirts all there, the illustrations and writing on the walls...Garance looking cute, friendly and approachable, but surrounded, and - I was too shy to approach her! Even though I know a couple of people who know her and I could have been all blahblahblah, I'm so and so, I'm a friend of so and so and thingy etc, I suddenly came over all coy. I'm no good at the blahblahblah. Arrghh, sorry, how rude - I go to your cocktail thing, look around, down a Bellini in three seconds then don't even say hi.

Never mind, off to Scott's book signing. I'm sure she'll be along there soon and I'll have a chat to them both together. It'll probably be quite calm in my second home.

The Liberty Men's Department was filled with a snaking queue of hundreds and hundreds of patient people adjusting their hats and lapels in anticipation. Literally, winding through all the departments like an insane fashion conga. I already had my book with me and we managed to ascertain that they had run . out . of . books, had gone and bought up the entire stock from Selfridges but had then run out again, which was causing the massive hold up. We tried to sort of mooch through to wherever Scott was just to wave, say hi, smile, anything, but no.

Because I already had a copy of the book, if I was prepared to go to the back of the queue (which in the intervening 10 minutes had grown alarmingly and now snaked up the stairs and out of the door) I had a slim chance of getting my book signed before they shut at 9pm, two hours later. I would not like to be in the Liberty Events Manager's shoes tomorrow morning (though I would probably like to borrow them if they're Nicholas Kirkwood). Just as I had decided; Scott, I adore you, but I don't need your signature that badly, Garance passed by me and...I was too shy to say hello.

Outside Liberty, I saw a man leaning against a wall that complemented the tones of his outfit, adjusting his scarf and looking around hopefully. I should have then continued on to the Kitsune/Ponystep party at Shop@Bluebird but somehow the idea of a slice of pizza at Princi and a slug of vino rosso sounded just about perfect.

Cheers to you my loves - Scott I hope your writing hand hasn't cramped up too much and Garance, I promise I'll work harder on my social skills.

THERE IT IS...

I knew I had a photo of that Parisian doppelganger amphicar knocking around somewhere.

{My photo ©}

VOCABULARY TEST...

It was very late on a Wednesday night in Paris.
Elisabeth had taken me along to a gorgeous party and I was walking home feeling a little elegantly wasted. Glad of the walk, but not sure of the area, I tensed up as I saw a couple of dodgy looking geezers approach. Here we go, they're going to ask me the time first, then start hassling me. They closed in and one of them said;

"Vous etes ravissante mademoiselle."

Apparently in some quarters this would be considered disrespectful. Perhaps the people in those quarters have never had someone say, "Oi, oi," (difficult to translate) or "I'davesummathat", or my favourite; "Oi, smile love, might never happen." Why would anyone ever respond to that last one with anything other than an icy glare.

I'm under no illusions; I'm quite sure that the last thing I looked at that moment was ravissante, more to the point I am clearly borderline past the point of being addressed as mademoiselle (perhaps in the dark). If this is the worst I can expect from lecherous blokes on late night boulevards, then I'm fairly impressed with their vocabulary. What, no making that strange call that sounds like you're trying to attract a squirrel, or the delightful "Bella Figa" I know so well from Italy?

In any case, I moved swiftly on, obviously; marveling at the quaintness of the phrase and dreading my return to London.

MEMORIES...

I always get a little sentimental in Liberty's fabric department; actually it's possible that I get a little weepy and nostalgic and find myself holding onto shelves stroking fabric while trying to control a whoosh of emotion.

When I was a wee young thing my sweet Granny B would take me to Liberty to choose printed cotton for a dress or a skirt that she would then make me. (I'm having deja vu - I think I may have mentioned this before, must be the toxic fumes from the wet asphalt on the roof outside.) These weren't fancy clothes, they were everyday clothes; there was yarn buying for the cardigans she knitted too - always a solid colour with three same coloured buttons. It was all very specific.

Then we would go and have open faced prawn or smoked salmon sandwiches for high tea at Dickens & Jones (which used to be opposite Liberty).

There's a particular Liberty print that makes my pulse race and my heart jump. It is the strongest sense memory I have, more so than any scent or flavour. I know I had a dress made out of it when I was about five but what I did in that dress that causes me to have this reaction, I couldn't tell you. I can never be sure I've found the exact print in the exact colour either - maybe they don't make that colourway any more, pinks and purples, but if I see something similar I get the reaction.

The other day I went to Liberty to get some Tana Lawn fabric and I was creaking around on the wooden floorboards thinking of all this, how it affected me, how maybe those early visits were what made me love clothes. I was thinking, you did a good thing there Granny, you really did. Then I picked up a Liberty handkerchief and the name of the print was Mary Jane Hart. Mary, my Granny's name, Jane, my mum's name. H(e)art. I stared at it amazed, as if Granny B herself had cosmically guided me to pick up that particular one.

Then the guy cutting my fabric (which I just saw is called Claire something!) was super grumpy and kind of snapped me right out of my nostalgic reverie. Anyway, I love it when Liberty prints are everywhere as they are this summer, makes me feel five again!

edit: Ha! I just looked through some old photos and from birth to about age 6 I have a different Liberty print in every one. I'll try and scan some if I can get the scanner working...

{left: Mary Jane Hart, right: a bit of the Claire-Aude fabric I bought
collage: my first ever Polyvore set - baby steps}

THEN AND NOW...

Then: Charlotte Rampling in Georgy Girl - Now: photographed by Jacques Bosser.

Then: Jane Birkin with Serge - credit unknown - Now: photographed by Carole Bellaïche

Continuing on a theme - I have been pondering this so much that I think I could fill an entire book on the subject. It's hard to marshal my thoughts though.

I'm wondering how it is that (I'll speak for myself at least) Jane Birkin and Charlotte Rampling are such enduring icons. Is it because they are still beautiful, (I would argue that Rampling has become even more beautiful with age) with no apparent signs of tampering; that they look very much the same as they always have and both have a recognisable simple style? Is it because they achieved that seemingly impossible feat of being English girls who moved to Paris and were able to crack the notoriously hard shells of the Parisians? Is it more than external - to do with the choices they've made in how they live and the work they do? Or are they just lucky? You could say that Brigitte Bardot is an enduring icon I suppose, but she is more an example of how not to age! I am by no means saying it's just about skin deep beauty though - it is something from within. I must say that though I can watch Bardot in an old film and think what a pretty girl, there is not much that really interests me about her (unlike Serge who was with both Bardot and Birkin! Apparently Bardot's breasts "frightened" him so he moved on to the slighter figured Jane.)

Have you noticed how as people get older they kind of set hard? Something about them becomes immovable and perhaps, if you're not careful, the way you set could be an unfortunate reflection of your state of mind and spirit. Or perhaps the secret of Birkin/Rampling is that they've never set, they just evolve naturally while keeping the essence of themselves. That seems like a lot less trouble, and far more palatable than the lengths someone like Madonna goes to.

It's funny to me that when I was a teenager I pasted pages of editorials from magazines all over my walls, as I'm sure many of us did. A way to collect influences to help define who and how we would be. But lately when I look at models I just find they mostly look incredibly frail. Now in my sketchbook and here I am posting photos of women more than twice my age, as if somehow this will help me navigate the rocky path of well, not being a girl anymore. (Arrghh, no Britney, no!)

I call it notes for the future.

TREASURES...

My mum and my uncle c.1949,
My granny c.1910

My mum and granny c.1960

{family photos ©}

CURSES, FOILED AGAIN...

This morning I was looking forward to a day of playing hooky, which is one of my favourite things to do. I find almost all experiences are that much sweeter when you're supposed to be doing something else. (Also known as le grand procrastination.) I had plans, big plans, to drive all the way to Charleston in East Sussex, which I told myself was "research" for something which with a little (a lot of) imagination I could consider the "precursor" to what I'm actually supposed to be working on, which is to do with 1960s mod fashion, so obviously it is vitally important that I thoroughly investigate the 1920s artwork of the Bloomsbury Group. I was supposed to be going to Charleston with a friend who lives down that way, when she can get her hubby to babysit her wee ones, but I am very impatient. This is how I always end up watching films twice at the cinema, because I cannot wait for the person I promised I'd watch a certain film with to become available. Schedules: boo, spontaneity: oui. Charleston kept calling to me, knowing that today is the first day of the year it opens to the public. Everywhere I looked this morning I saw Bloomsbury influenced things. I thought how nice it would be on an actual rare sunny day to drive out of London, away from the unrest and into the countryside. Ahhhhhh....



Like an old, responsible person I check the oil, screenwash etc levels of my car. I bring a jacket in case it gets cold. I drive approximately half a mile and become aware of someone whistling and clappping. Bloody pervs, I think. The boy at the bus stop catches my attention and shouts, "You've got a flat tyre mate." Long story short: I make it to a nearby garage (since I have been driving on the flat tyre unaware, I assume it's ok to continue a bit further) where they inform me that both my rear tyres are f**ked and if I'd gone on the motorway they both would have blown. They fit my little comedy spare tyre, which is only temporary and not allowed near a motorway or over 50 mph and I am not sure if I'm really unlucky, as everything I try to do lately gets thwarted somehow*, or incredibly lucky that the boy at the bus stop saw it and told me.

*First my entire inventory of stock for the online vintage shop I had been planning for over a year was destroyed in the mothalypse and had to be thrown away, along with most of my own clothes; then I got really excited about experimenting with my dad's 1970s Canon SLR (for which I have a huge box of lenses and filters) and the winding on mechanism broke halfway through the first roll of film. It's just like that at the moment and I know it will pass. But I don't want to get too excited about anything, or even state "I'm going to do this or that" because, well, a spanner always seems to get lodged firmly in the works.

But I know that today I was really lucky.

{photo: Louise Dahl-Wolfe/Harper's Bazaar}

CAN I COME TO YOUR PARTY?...

I've had this Henry Clarke photo from Vogue saved for so long I can't exactly remember the story I was going to use it to illustrate. One of the dresses is by Marcel Fenez - I think it's on the bird sitting under the tree. I only know this because my Granny worked for Marcel Fenez - one of those long forgotten names - not quite a couture house, more a production house. I remember her saying that Madame Fenez would shout at her all the time in French and she just smiled because she didn't understand a word.

When I worked in Bond Street, I walked down Maddox Street every morning and one day noticed an old brass plaque saying, yes, Marcel Fenez. Then I discovered that my Grandpa's office (he was in textiles - or as went the joke - he travelled in ladies underwear) was in Margaret Street, twenty seconds from where I was living at the time in Wells Street; and that a later office of my Grandmother's had been on the corner of Wells Street itself, three doors away from my flat. These threads make London more interesting to me. I may have only known my Granny as a disapproving battleaxe pensioner (!) and remember my Grandpa only vaguely but hearing that in their prime they hung out at the Cafe Royal (RIP), Cafe de Paris and Le Caprice makes me wonder at their lives back then. (I've just had a spooky deja vu that I've posted this whole story before - oh dear, sorry if I have and tell me because I can hardly remember my own name at the moment!)

I need to get back into reading Something Wholesale - it's about the fashion business in that same era and it's amazing to note how different things were. The coat department for example was called the Cloak and Mantle department and everyone is all Mr this and Miss that.

How different everything is now. Even with most designers going for recession black and safe shapes, with people talking about how it's all ground to a halt and slowed down. Most of the fashion week talk is now not about the clothes, but more likely to be twitter reports of what happened/who was in the front row. And when I see a Dries van Noten coat and think: Ha! That looks exactly like a bathrobe (exit 5) I know something has shifted for me. I don't mean that in a negative way but the former me would never have mocked the Dries, even inwardly. (I mean, come on it totally does.)

All this to say that having just thrown out most of my clothes, the nature of fashion has been brought up close to me. I've always been of the philosophy of buying good things that last (come to think of it that was drummed in to me by my grandparents) but everything changes and you change too. Fashion moves, that's what it does. Hot young labels I believed in just a few years ago are forgotten, the few *It* (ugh) items I have seem ridiculous. It's been a revelation when deciding what to get rid of, how many connotations my clothes have to me, especially when you've been holding onto things for 15 years or more. And when you sit there and go, no that reminds me of such and such, no that always makes me feel not quite right it suddenly seems quite sensible to chuck it out and start again fresh.

There are so few things that stand the test of time: a Chanel 2:55 bag, a YSL le smoking. But that could change and you can't predict accurately. Or is it better (obviously not considering the environment) to buy cheap(er) things and throw them out when you've had enough? The Sessun stuff I bought last September has been pretty much all I've worn all winter and I've loved it. It was exactly right for me, for the time. Though the 3/4 length sleeve jumper is now short sleeved and full of bobbles from being washed, the duffel jacket leaked dye into the lining and the buttons changed colour when I dry cleaned it and the booties took a bit of work to sort out the squeaking, it's been my extremely cost effective uniform. But next winter, I'm pretty sure it won't be. (Ooh am I trying to talk myself into buying the whole Sessun collection each season?)

I don't know, maybe it's a post moth destruction phase but I can't quite see myself buying/wearing designer clothes anymore. Or as my neighbour so cheerily quipped when I told her strangers kept talking to me; "It's because you're more approachable 'cos you haven't got any of your designer clothes anymore." Uh, cheers for pointing that out. When I look at something and remember the extreme lengths I went to in the hunt for it, only to now see it full of holes and going straight in the bin, I feel a little bit sick, a little bit stupid, a little bit like I'll be buying everything at Gap from now on.

{photo: Henry Clarke}