Fake Fur, Films And French 75s

I like staying up late. I like sleeping late. I like two-hour lunches with wine.*
- Joan Collins 

So this is the one you've all been waiting for...I know, I know, since October. The Premiere, the new release, the opening act, top of the bill, talk of the town (I don't think so), king of the hill, top of the heap etc. When one consciously uncouples with ones clothes, one has to consciously recouple you know! My mind was a blue screen. To casually quote Baudelaire 'Nothing can be done except little by little'... So it's been a work in progress, this epic, montage, storyboard, flash-frame, cinema-scope, whiplash of clothes, swirling about in my head for these past weeks. So, please excuse the proverbial spewing of thoughts on to the (digital) page but here goes: often off script, 
definitely off auto-cue. 

I'd like to thank the Academy..........of friends for the, often aggressive, occasionally threatening, emails of encouragement, each one would leave me thinking You like me! You really like me! Sally Field style. I'd like to thank one friend in particular who said she wouldn't speak to me until I'd written my next instalment. 
(Happy now Kate?? Call me.)

Excuses out the way - OK so we've done January and some of February. Phew. But we still have some dark days ahead people. I am sure I've said this before but my friend says she prescribes herself fur and fake tan for these dreary winter months and I quite agree.  Except I am going to prescribe myself a tan and fake fur....oh and French 75s - but more on that later. I want to focus on fun February things not fitness things! I've thrown out the spirulina and the spiralizer, I have been intentionally careless with my gym kit. What follows are the contenders for the lovely things that have lifted my spirits during the colder months. I've cracked open the champagne, I'm opening the golden envelope.  I'm letting down the fourth wall. I'm ready for my close up Mr DeMille!

The nominations are:

Best New Arrivals

Fake Fur Coats

My main fashion joy in the past months has been fake, colourful fur, unreal fur, fashion fur or whatever you want to call it. It ticks all my boxes so I have been busy expanding my collection. Its warm, it doesn't hurt the little animals, it doesn't moult and (sometimes) it's cheaper. Obviously it all began with my Shrimps clutch (reminisce here) and then the obsession spiralized out of control. I'm 5 and counting. If you asked me if you could borrow my fake fur coat I genuinely, guiltily wouldn't know which one you were talking about.

I would also say no, FYI.

It's become a bit of an obsession. But the thing is doesn't matter what you wear underneath (I suggest pyjamas or nothing ooh la la - not really) they complete your outfit, make you feel like a movie star. They also cover up a multitude of sins and they make you wear colour in the winter. And people want to stroke you. Which is nice, depending who it is. So it's just all great really. There are lots of nice ones left in the dregs of the sales...so all that money you've saved on doing boring dry January, spend it on something that will bring you unremitting joy and warmth in these long chilly months.

Coat from Ainea

For those of you who follow me on Instagram, you will have seen my
Dulcie coat from Shrimps. It's my favourite, Kapow!

Coat from Story of Lola available at ASOS. Slightly bonkers.

Best Supporting Category:

French 75s
(nb. They absolutely will not support you if you drink more than 2)

I have also discovered French 75s! I was always aware of their existence but they've reared their rather beautiful French heads more recently. New Years Day was made A LOT easier with these wonders.  After seeing off  3 rather quickly though we were calling them Turkish 97s  and sluuuuring frankly my dear I don't give a damn! But everything and everyone starts to look rosy and attractive. Here is ze recipe from Simon Hopkinsons wonderful book (best person). SO easy! Best drink after a drought I say. Mix up a few of these darlings and drape yourself on the casting couch.

Best Trousers

Vintage. Tick! Moschino. Tick! Casino related. Tick!

Feather bra-let from Topshop. Vintage Moschino Casino Pants
from Lime Green Bow. Always, always bet on red. Shut up and deal.

Best Dresses

Notable costume performances have come from the following:

Malene Birger Silk Dress with jewelled pockets.

Vintage dress from Lime Green Bow. It's like a firework.
 It satisfies my inner magpie!

Lime Green Bow has a pop up shop at 201 Portobello Road right NOW!
Open for the next two weeks. Info here.

Best Score/Soundtrack

I Love You, Honeybear by Father John Misty. Splendid. Just splendid in every single way. 

Download it here.

An album about musician John Tillman's life, most songs are about him 'engaging in all sorts of regrettable behaviour.'
I like him already.

Best Item To Wear Even Though People Love To Comment On It In An Annoying Way:

Kate Moss for Topshop Silk Day Pyjamas
Cut to Christmas day 2014. INT. old house in the countryside - KITCHEN - DAYTIME - people shouting...My Kate Moss for Topshop Pyjamas. Worn on Christmas Day...you can imagine the jibes I got from the grown-ups. Going back to bed Grace? Forgot to get dressed Grace? etc etc. I pointed out that as long as I was wearing underwear it was all fine.

Best Shoes, Accessories and Headgear

Paul Andrew Velvet Fume Loafer from Avenue 32 sale.
The perfect smart shoe.

Charlotte Simone Popsicle. Love this. Although it should probably go in to the
Best Item To Wear Even Though People Love To Comment On It In An Annoying Way category.
 People like to tug on it and say 'What's this?'

Eugenia Kim Headband. Reminds me of Spring. Hurry up Spring!

And...THE WINNER IS my Victoria Grant wonder. Cocktail anyone? Don't mind if I do. This makes me happier than a seagull with a French 75....oh wait sorry a French fry.

Of all the gin joints in all the world....

Lifetime Achievement Award

You can read about when I first acquired this coat here. It can't be put in any other category - it stands alone. Slightly makes all the banging on about my other coats a bit defunct but hey! It's a star not a starlet. It's Oscar worthy. It's an old-hander. It's Meryl Streep, not Kiera Knightly. It's Robert De Nero, not Eddie Redmayne. It makes me feel like Marilyn when I look like Shrek. It's Gone With The Wind, not Fifty Shades of Grey. Its raindrops on roses. It's whiskers on kittens. It's the meet cute, it's when Harry met Sally, it's Casablanca! When I saw it for the first time I knew it was going to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

That's a wrap folks. Don't hold your breath for the sequel.

The End.

Fade out. Roll credits.

*This quote bears absolutely no relevance to the blog post apart from the fact that I like it. February Vibes. Joan Collins gets my vote.

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Selfie Scrapbook

'Selfie trend is getting a bit sinister'

-The Telegraph, March 2014

This outfit post has been evolving for a while. I had the dreaded Storage Full thing on my phone so went about deleting everything surplus to requirement from my handheld. I embarked on a journey through my photographs and initially I happened upon a variety of selfies (body not face - nothing worth hacking into my iCloud for) taken in the loos of St John - sounds a bit grotty but they just so happen to be the whitest, cleanest WCs in London and have the best mirror for a full body outfit shot. So this post started as 'St John Selfies' throughout the year. But I only found about four which maybe was not enough to keep anyone interested. Coming across another series of photographs taken in three different musical venues over the summer, therefore three different sets of clothes, I thought this post could be called something reeeally imaginative like 'Gigs - What I Wore'. The variety of artists being Paloma Faith at The Roundhouse, Jonathan Wilson at Village Underground and One Direction at Wembley. One evening of lipstick and saxophones followed by beards, harmonicas and patchouli, finishing off with screaming, sherbet and cherry chap-sticks but blog-post wise I still wasn't feeling enthused. And then I wore boring things to the Paloma gig so that plan was scuppered. 

It shortly afterwards became a post about my mini trip to the States. A bit of a 'Miami Vice' vibe but I wasn't very committed to the idea and sort of ended  up just wearing  a bikini and floaty things and taking a few snaps that I thought were good to go. That was until my friend and I lay on sun loungers next to supermodel Erin Wasson for an afternoon and I ended up deleting all my photographs and vowing to only eat broccoli and smoke cigarettes for the rest of my life. 

Then just before I decided that it would be a full on shameless selfie post I was pouring over the weekend papers and read that Kim Kardashian is bringing out a book called 'Selfish' entirely of her and her bottom. It also reported that obsessive selfie-taking is now a recognised mental disorder. Argh! Quick! Delete!  But then it seemed like such a waste. So before I consign most of these shots to the trash and free up some storage space - here are some of the clothes I have worn around the town, things I've tried on, things I've been given and things I can't wait to wear. There's no common theme except for the fact they're nearly all of me and lots have been taken in bathrooms around the world. A selfie-scrapbook if you will. I hope it doesn't make you feel the need to suggest I urgently require a stint in the Priory sans phone and mirrors. 

THINGS I'VE WORN

First St. John Selfie. You may have seen this one before.

Loos of LouLous

My favourite Cedric Charlier bag which is having a moment again

Close up of my dress from Lime Green Bow. 

Bathroom up The Shard. If you look carefully you'll see this is also a 'Belfie'.*

Close up of my Zimmerman Splatter Dress

Me wearing a sink and some tiles in Polpo

St John Selfie #2

We went to a Caribbean music night in Miami.

The pale pink bathrooms of Soho Beach House. Another favourite Zimmerman dress
which matched the interiors.

Boring outfit for Paloma.

St. John - last one. In my new favourite Zara dress which will see me
through these weird weather days.

THINGS I TRIED ON (and MAYBE bought)

I was nearly sold on this Kate Moss for Topshop dress until I saw LiLo
falling out of a club in it.

Obsessed with this Bonwitt Teller silk dress at Lime Green Bow. See it here.

Favourite handbag. Apart from the fact I can only fit some earphones in it. 

Another wonderful handmade thing found in the charity shop on Notting Hill
Gate. It looks like a night sky.

Kenneth Jay Lane Ring from eBay

Victor Costa pale pink origami dress. Also from Lime Green Bow.
I am in love with this dress.
More on it soon.

Chanello

GIFTS THAT WERE GIVEN (from people who clearly know me very well!)

Lucky me! A birthday gift. Viennese gem from a flea market. Emerald green is my
favourite colour. And my adored Amethyst ring from best friends.

Lucky me again! Favourite birthday gift. I had been dreaming about owning this. My dream came true!
The most beautiful gold Bluebell pendant by Catherine Zoraida. 

Christmas present from my sister...VIP ONE DIRECTION tickets at Wembley! Hurray!
Up there with one of the best nights of my life. Dress from Topshop. 

One Direction gave us a watch! With their signatures on the back. Yes!

I actually wear the watch...with my LLBean Tote.

Things I will be wearing

ASOS Salon dress.

I was going to show you this on the next post but I got too excited.
My magical Portobello blanket coat. More on this next time.

Topshop. Too good.

*Handy Glossary

Helfie: a selfie of hair

Belfie: a selfie of the derriere

Welfie: a work out selfie 

Drelfie: a drunken selfie

Shelfie: a selfie of your bookshelf

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Fight Night

What to wear when you realise that you are about to spend an evening in the company of a load of glamorous and beautiful people out-dressing each other? It's been a while since I have been to a bit of a do...so I racked my brains to come up with something snazzy. As my friend pointed out, it's a boxing match...you don't have to look classy if you catch my drift! It ain't the opera. And in my opinion a touch of trash never hurt anyone.

I found inspiration in the unlikely guise of Victoria Beckham. I can honestly say I've never before looked to VB for good fashion ideas. The only thing in common I have with her is that I too keep my mouth closed while being photographed. But I saw pictures of her and Mr. Perfect at the Met Ball recently - simple in white and I knew exactly what to do....which was call my dry cleaners. I was thinking WHITE and I was thinking JEWELS and I was thinking FEATHERS.



 In the Reiss sale last Summer I bought a pure white jumpsuit sample which I found in a heap on the floor of the store collecting dust-bunnies. I took it to my beautiful laundrette and left it there.*
Until last week that is, when it came in to its own on the most beautiful night of the year so far.

*we have a storage arrangement as I have run out of hanging space and he's got loads.

VB & DB

This is the beautiful blogger Natalie Joos of Tales of Endearment.
She gave me the idea to add  feathers and go top to toe white.
 Follow her on Instagram!

The evening was The Charge Ball held at the glorious Syon Park in Chiswick in aid of Tusk - a really wonderful charity which funds wildlife conservation, community development and environmental programmes across Africa. To learn more about their work visit here

Syon Park

I was terrified of doing the white thing. All it takes is a bump, knock or elbow and it's game over. The last time I wore white, somebody sloshed a glass of rouge down the front. I spent the evening in a portaloo with a tin of table salt and a sympathetic friend. I proceeded to run the dress under a tap and then sat on a stray receipt which then imprinted the following on my bottom  'PERCY PIG X1 £2.50, LADIES TIGHTS 20 DENIER X1 £3.73, CASH TENDERED' etc etc. I had to go home.

The carrier bag contains a change of outfit in the event that there was a code-red wine incident. 

Or in case I got too close to the blood, sweat and tears.

Boxing. 

Then this happened, ringside. My life is complete. The style guru Marc-Francis Vandelli appeared like a vision in blue satin and kept growling at my feathers all evening, in a good way. Apart from my hand looking weird, this is one of my favourite pictures of all time. Hello new screensaver.

NBF

Apart from a small mark I came away relatively unscathed despite getting pretty close to the action and gallivanting until 3am. So it's going back to live at my laundrette until I feel another Posh Spice moment coming on.

Ciao for now!

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