Resurrection Mark Ten Zillion

It's once again been a while since I touched this blog, and every time I get pulled back to it I wonder why I left it, whether I'll really be able to get going again, whether I really want to... But this blog has kept me going through some rough patches, and I just can't seem to let go of it.

So today, I'm turning over a new leaf. As I said, it's been a while, and quite a bit has changed. I'm no longer a student, no longer struggling to get through a depressive fog day to day, and I'm happily settled in a relationship, house, job etc.

My wardrobe has, I must admit, changed focus...

My weekend clothes are mostly the old favourites: a couple of Etsy and charity shop dress finds, an old pair of far too big jeans, some moth-bitten jumpers. All things I find comfort in. Because now weekends are about running around, doing errands, and spending time relaxing. Mainly as I'm still living in Cambridge, but a little further out than I used to be. Thus, I wander around the house with a book, while one of the boys builds something in the back garden, and the other programmes some "useful" thing on their laptop. Ah life.

My sartorial comfort zone now lies in my work wear. Having never before been chic and pared down, I have moved a little more into my mother's style of dressing. Simple jumpers with smart trousers, plus a few silky, smart dresses which share a teensy whisper of my previous life with my new one...

I have been converted to a well cut pair of trousers, and have three pairs from Jaeger on endless cycle. I definitely need more. Jaeger trousers always fit me, and are always the right length... Yum.

And I have become obsessed by knitwear. Particularly, John Smedley Geranium scoop neck sweaters and N Peal cashmere V necks which I have been scooping up at Cocosa's rather excellent sale prices. (John Smedley stuff is currently on sale on Brand Alley, but I hate their delivery policies - it takes far, far too long, so I'm passing on the "vibrant pink" jumper... Sob!)

Oh, and then there's my irrational, crazy, head-over-heels crush in the rather lovely oversized Stine Goya oversized grey jumper that I know, unfortunately, that I'll never own, no matter how long I yearn... Sad times. Seriously though... HOW HOT IS THIS ENSEMBLE?!?!?!

And then, there is my winter coat... It is my belief that an awesome winter coat is the foundation of a good day at work. Walking along in the morning, striding out against the biting wind, my coat protects me, it shelters me, and, catching a glimpse of myself in the window of the shops I pass, it surrounds me in a slightly princessy, slightly businesslike, slightly mysterious cocoon of mink softness... Paul Costelloe is the make, bought a few years ago in a sale in Peter Jones, the King's Road branch of John Lewis. And I adore it. It's got cute details like the double rows of stitching and the bracelet cuffs. The lining is secure and silky, and it still looks beautiful despite a few winters' hard wear.

Last year, I flirted with a gorgeous furry thing, that still makes my heart beat just a little bit faster when I wear it out, but it's always this one I come back to for warmth and great lines when it's really getting chilly. So now, I'm thinking about the next one. Paul Costelloe has made a couple of my mother's winter coats, so I now they last and keep their fit as she's had both of hers for years. So now I'm coveting one of their long riding coats like this one... (Though I have to say, on both John Lewis and House of Fraser's websites, they look really scruffy and crumpled! Ick.)

I guess I'll have to wait for the sales again though... Sigh.

This Fashion Life

Well, as everyone knows, it's mid-London Fashion Week...

At work, the only reasons one notices this fact are that my boss keeps leaving in the middle of the day dressed to the nines and we have had to stuff thousands of party invites including one addressed to "Ms Anna Wintour"!

However, Claire (of A View From Here) and myself have been a *little bit* fashion-week-y this weekend...

First up: Yesterday, we went to the lovely Romina Karamanea show (part of the Vauxhall Fashion Scout schedule). We have made it a policy to always try to get a plus one, so we both get to go to lots more stuff as we tend to get invited to different things! Yay blogger mates!

We got all dressed up... Of course!

Claire wearing her AMAZING sample sale JP Braganza dress...

Little Ol' Me wearing: H&M lace and ribbon jacket, H&M charcoal tee, vintage belt, H&M skirt, H&M crushed velvet leggings, ToyWatch, vintage (mother-acquired) "Chelsea" boots and Luella black leather bag (just seen).

The Romina Karamanea show was just so cool. We were queuing outside Freemasons' Hall for fecking ages, and again inside the venue, but it was great for people watching and architecture-porn-spotting!!!!

Freemasons' Hall is so kitsch and really rather fascinating to explore... Claire noticed the pentagram on the front step, and I was rather enamoured with these light fittings and all the autumnal colours of stained glass!

These two girls really fascinated me. I adore these bird headbands that have done the blogging rounds, but had never seen anyone out and about with one on... Too cute! She had this great asymetric haircut too. I went to my hairdressers after the show and showed this photo to two of the stylists. Hilariously, one of them had seen the same girl, with the same crow, only two days before at Victoria tube station! Yay for fashion freedom! Love the bleached look of her friend too... They both just looked so perfect and out-of-time - they made me cheer for London's ability to nurture and celebrate such quirkiness and confidence!

Anyway... On to the show!

Romina Karamanea - Ready-To-Wear - Spring/Summer 2010

presented at Freemasons' Hall, Great Queen Street, London as part of Vauxhall Fashion Scout LFW September 2009

Thoughts???

Mine: Amazing Square Shoulders... Shoes that seemed harder to stand still in than walk... Lots of graphic, block printing... Easy flowing fabrics and much more structured pieces mixed together to create a quite cohesive and interesting show. The notes spoke of a collection inspired by "engineering and industrialisation, everything is linear and robotic. There is a theme of disconnection..." Quite like the times we live in eh! The pre-show video sequence was also amazing, detailing the corsetry techniques, speaking of destruction and construction, and celebrating the form of the model lopping her long black hair off to reveal the monochrome laced clothes. All in all, a great show that struck the right balance. Not all of it was stuff I'd wear, but there were certainly enough pieces in there that had me salivating to ensure I keep a close eye on what this girl gets up to next!!!

More to come on our LFWeek-end exploits soon!

Night!

Xxxc

Secretary Chic

Gosh I'm bad at this lately... But I'm crossing fingers that I'm going to get my mojo back as I'm starting to get excited about styling again. I've had a good week and have made a select few purchases and started thinking dreamily about the return to the gilded spires of Cam.

Don't get me wrong; I adore London and my people in it, but working where I do has in some ways stifled my love of fashion even as I've been immersed in it. Odd eh!

Something about the worthless feeling that comes of interning. Not for me really.

The rest of the office have spent today organising an event, while I *miraculously* was not called upon to work said a-list extravaganza, and had an extremely fun and fashion-filled day despite non-work-involvement. Woop! More to come on today's adventures in a later post...

Firstly, however, I want to do some catching up!!!

Here is a photo shoot that T-B, his lovely assistant / girlfriend Becks and I did in his set pretty much the night before before I set off home for the summer... So mid-June time. Yikes! Haven't I been a bad blogger this summer!!!

Peeping, Laughing, Not Yet Sleeping...

Wearing: Face a Face glasses, vintage mustard blouse (bought from The Stylish Wanderer), ICB silk skirt, Kate Kuba navy suede shoes, ToyWatch, Vintage silk scarf (bought at Ark Vintage in Cambridge) and vintage navy suede belt.

I went to T-B and Becks' for (yummy scrummy) dinner tonight... Their new flat is AMAZING but it's wierd to think when I return to Cam in a fortnight's time, they'll still be in London. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek! They're both grown-ups now!!! Or maybe not... Hehe.

Right. Off to sleep with me... Early rising tomorrow!!!

Xxxc

Green Light at the end of the dock...

Now I'm the first to admit that I've been crap at this blogging malarkey of late... It's been bloody ages since my last post, and I haven't even been checking in on other people! Naughty huh.

I've been working at my internship since the end of June and I think that I just needed to separate work and play a bit. Inspiration has been oddly lacking, and I've been madly dashing from one "London thing" to the next, so updating online hasn't exactly been a priority!

My life of late has been hectic to say the least, filled with lots of time with friends, theatre, film, art and yummy food. Claire from The View From Here is teaching me how to bake, and life's really rather satisfactory.

Work's fun as I work with lovely people, but I have come to realise that as much as I love fashion and clothes and making visual statements through my wardrobe; creating a character, I don't want to make it my career... Which I guess is why I haven't been online. I need a bit of separation between work and play.

However, with fashion week coming up, and work being frenetic, I thought now would be an *ideal* time to start blogging again (see the slight sarcasm?)!!! ;-D I won't be around commenting too much, but I'm going to try to post content more often.

So. Where to start?

Well, first up, I have a couple of reviews and an update on my current addictions:

1) my name necklace

Okay, so Sex and the City is a looooong way gone, but I got sent a Cassiopeia name necklace by the lovely people at mynamenecklace.co.uk! Exciting times. I shall put up a photo as soon as I can, but my camera is currently not exactly working. It's silver and I wear it several times a week. It makes me smile! It's good quality and came in a lovely purple gift box too. I'm a sucker for pretty presentation... The only reason I don't wear it every day is that as far as jewellery goes I usually prefer gold, and I wish I'd asked for an 18" not a 16" chain, but overall I'd really recommend this website if you are going to get one! I certainly love mine, and if I weren't completely broke I'd get myself another one!!! I rather like the acrylic necklaces like this one. So thanks to Steve for getting me involved!

2) borders and frontiers teeshirts

Again, everyone's got one of the Tavi tees by now, and the Igor and Andre blog ones are doing the rounds too - and you all look GORGEOUS! But since I haven't been online much lately, I thought I'd just spare a moment to wax lyrical about these tees. These are my favourite basic wear-with-anything-anytime tops. I wear them to work with skirts and belts and on the weekends in city or country with jeans or dresses. The cotton is so thick and yummy and though they blatantly don't exactly make me look stick thin, I love them anyway... The adorable Drew even sent me this lovely specimen new one that, bad me, I'm not sure which blog it belongs to, but I adore, which again I will have to wait to put pictures of up as camera = dimwitted. I am also *loving* Rumi's one and have had a long term crush on the one by Bonjour Girl... Wish (as usual) I wasn't so darn broke!!!

3) lots and lots and lots of theatre

My life of late has revolved around shows... I love that the calibre of things being put on in and around London this summer has been so high. As I had saved up to enjoy my time at home, I've done a tonne, and loved every minute of it.

A few highlights:

Dominic Cooper in Phedre. Love Racine. Love his arms. Sigh.

Ian McKellen in Waiting For Godot. Perfect. Bumbling through Beckett. A Class Act.

Arcadia... Just a lovely play.

The Mariinsky Ballet at the Royal Opera House - not technically theatre... The Homage to Balanchine was amazingness personified, and their Sleeping Beauty was breathtaking.

Jerusalem at the Royal Court. I've loved Mark Rylance since he was artistic director at the Globe, and he's just AMAZING. Such stage presence. Such a beautiful voice. Such a great play.

I've also been to a lot of Proms - managed 5 concerts in one day on the bank holiday!!! And a lot of film... Anyone who gets a chance to see Mid-August Lunch SHOULD!!!

Okay, enough rambling now. I should sleep. I'm off to the Tate in the morning bright and early to see the Futurism exhibition with one of my closest friends who has been away in Edinburgh for a month... Woop!

Night. I promise there'll be more pictures next time!

Xxxc

I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down...

So I come home for the summer, and have to move out again in the space of two weeks...

Hmmmmm. Not ideal. Basically, our entire house is being rebuilt around us over the course of 5 months for reasons far too dull to go into, and all furniture / books / clothes etc that we don't use on a regular basis has to either be chucked or put into storage! Of course this was the plan, until my roof sprung a second leak, waking me up at 4am during the other morning's thunder storm... So now I am moving out, and into my old maths tutor's house ( - she's also one of my mum's best mates - ) for a while... Of course, this would be fine if my room wasn't Stuffed With Stuff, and we had more than 24 hours to do it.

Thus, all of this is why I might be a little lax on my posting every day rule for a while, but I'll do my best!

Anyway, life chat over with...

And onto some of the promised (for weeks) photos...

This post is dedicated to the finalists garden party, given by the Master of College in his gardens... Think Pimms and reminiscences and commiserations about how screwed we all are with the current economic climate haha. It was great fun actually, and I'm afraid it's a dress you've seen before ;-D - This wasn't a photoshoot in athe usual style, as obviously, T-B was taking photos of the event, not just me and my crazy outfits, but there were quite a few nice photos anyway!

- Oh yes, I'm just so serious... (And the old dude in the background is "The Master". Lovely guy.)

- Me sticking my tongue out in photos may be replacing the ubiquitous twirling ;-D

- How kwl is her dress?!?!

- The amazingly comfy, if slightly out of focus shoes, which cost me £15 quid in M&S and I wear ALL THE TIME! (Either those or the same ones in black which I also have :-D) - Oh, and evidence, that I don't iron my clothes hehe!

- The only full length shot... How serious do I look? ;-D


The outfit, elements of which have all been used before, was: Vintage handmade dress, M&S sandals, GAP shell pink cardigan and Vintage tooled leather bag, with my ToyWatch and BarryM purple nail polish.


So there you have it... Garden partay numero uno. Sorry it's taken me so long to post... I really do love this dress...


I'd had such a rushed morning before this, having overslept into a breakfast meeting, so I had to rush out in jeans and t-shirt and no make-up, knowing full well I had two garden parties later. Of course, I was late to both... And looked rather the ghost having just shoved on the first make up I could find, i.e. my going-out-foundation, and no blusher... (as I'd left it in T-B's kitchen cupboard. Don't ask!)

It seems weird to think that I've been gone from Cam for 2 weeks... It's also amazing how much one changes on starting work and settling back into big-city life. I'm much more routine-ised, and my style's subtly shifted; probably partly due to the environment I'm working in, but also because of how I'm feeling I guess... Up until yesterday, I had no idea what was going to happen when I've finished my internship in October. I was basically still waiting on an official decision from Cambridge's Business School as to whether I had been accepted onto their Management programme for 4th year. If not, I would have to get on applying for more internships and jobs in fashion PR and Marketing which is probably the career direction I'm going in...


And yesterday, the crisp white letter headed Judge Business School, University of Cambridge came in the post... And I've been accepted! So back to the 'Bridge in October. I am really excited, though I was quite ready to get on with "real" life... Scary eh!


Right. As usual this was supposed to be a short post, so I must be off!


Xxxc

Yo.

Short, low maintenance post today, for a number of reasons, none of which are really bloggable. I Have had an absolutely lovely day on the whole, as I had two little social occasions that were uber nice.

Skipping out of the office at about 2.15 ( - we have late lunches due to starting late and finishing late - ), I went to meet the beautiful Claire from The View From Here, fresh off the train from Paris, for a lovely sushi lunch, sitting in one of London's myriad grassy, tree filled squares/parks... She had even brought me Jalouse Magazine and MACAROONS!!! Love the girl :-D

- How sophisticated does she LOOK! Despite the heat, poised and elegant ;-D

- Then we have me... A little bit of perspiration, a little bit of crumpling in the clothes department, a little bit scattier than my So-Parisian-Chic-It-Hurts friend ;-D (Wearing a TopShop playsuit, TopShop oversized tee and M&S sandals... The sandals are one of my best summer buys. I have them in black too. So comfy and so so useful! Who'd'a thunk it?!)

It was great to have a gossip and hear all about the Parisian sales and her Immense purchases... One in particular I was particularly excited to hear about, but I'm sure she'll be blogging about that herself soon enough and don't want to spoil the surprise! ;-)

But all too soon, it was time to return to work... (Whoever invented one hour lunch breaks was a mean old sod who obviously had no social life!) The office was boiling, but we have developed a Starbucks habit for Frappes - make mine a berry one - late afternoon... Delish and uber-cooling. Yum. This heat certainly makes you a little lazy... Though today it wasn't too much our fault as, having had most of the day sans computer or printer/photocopier (don't ask), we had a massive rush in the last hour to get all our sendouts and emails done before home-time!

Upon leaving the office, us three press gals and our photographer friend rambled for a London-Heatwave-Post-Work-Thirst-Quenching-Pub-Drink (£4.05 for a G&T?!?! Feck!), round the corner from the office... Was supposed to be going to see Transformers II, but had decided this morning that as much as I love my home mates, I wasn't shelling out £8 for a crappy film lol.

So all in all, a nice day, but a sleepifying one...

Will try to get around to a more interesting post tomorrow; but until then; a couple of Look Book images:

- This girl reminds me a bit of Louise Brooks crossed with Daisy from The Great Gatsby... Loving the autumn leaves too. Crunchy looking!








- Want her hair!!! And that back drop...



(Really Loving the Black and White aesthetics at the mo...)

Xxxc