A love letter to Blue (not the boyband)

Hey blue. Here's a song for you.

- Joni Mitchell

Preface

A while ago I was having dinner with my friend Will in a lovely pub in London and we were watching Wales winning the football. I said 'Isn't it funny that this year everything has turned out the exact opposite to how it was expected...Leicester City, Wales (at that point) on track to winning the Euros and BREXIT...what on earth is going on?!' And he said 'Grace in this ever changing world, this strange year of playing opposites, when everything has been totally unexpected and a complete surprise - there has been one thing that has stayed steady, true to course and hasn't shocked anybody and that is: in 2016 you still haven't written a blog post. Some things are a constant in our lives and never change...'

SO in the spirit of surprising people and playing opposites - Will babe, this one's for you!

*****

It all started with a conversation over another dinner  a few weeks ago where I was asked what my favourite colour was.  Without thinking I said BLUE. Then I was pressed to say why and I couldn't find the words as to why. If I had sat there explaining why and who and how - we would all have been sitting there long after closing time while I explored and bored everyone with all the references that lie within the depths of my memory palace.      

    

For me, it's seas and azure skies and eyes and it's Jodphur, it's Marrakech, it's tears and fears, it's dreams, it's the flowers on the wallpaper of my childhood bedroom, it's my great aunts Mexican rug on the end of my bed, it's fields of flax, it's the shrunken cashmere jumper my brother gave me (he insists that I stole it), it's Camel Lights, a Famous Raincoat, Joni Mitchell, Irving Berlin tunes, it's a lot of my favourite things, London plaques, boybands, Astral Cream, sweet peas and hydrangeas, Springsteen lyrics, Levi 501s, it's quite a lot of  Elton John songs, Yves Klein, Love In A Mist, a Texan tuxedo, Chefchaouen, it's Picassos Periodo Azul, Spencer Tuniks Hull Avatars, ultramarine,cobalt, forget-me-nots, twilight, bluebells, any blue will do, once in a blue moon, navy, baby, teal, true, Tiffany, Oxford, Violet, Iris, Midnight, Parker pens and Smythson boxes, breton stripes, Lapis Lazuli, Grace Kelly's dreamy chiffon dress in To Catch a Thief...

Blue with it's celestial, deep hues meaning honour, royalty, a symbol of wisdom and truth. It's oceans between countries I've never yet been to and pools I haven't swum in. It's misery, melancholy, sapphires and blueberries (the only blue food).  It's cooling from the sun but catnip to a mosquito (mosquito-nip?). It's peace, harmony, unity, trust, security, confidence, conservatism, order, cleanliness, stability, protection. It is sincere, reserved and quiet, however, it commands attention and can be bold. It's the snatches and patches in a grey city sky, it's coolness, it's peace. And in the past few weeks and months when I (and everyone around me) was grasping for something familiar, unified, comforting and lovely I had noticed that I was unconsciously gravitating towards all things blue in every shade and hue and that a theme was emerging...and you all know how much I love a theme!

Blue Scent: L'Heure Bleue by Guerlain

Having had a phase of wearing this in my early twenties I decided to revisit this glorious scent and indeed it was like revisiting that time in my life - for as we all know our senses of smell and memory are intrinsically linked. It's powdery, velvety, melancholic, romantic and mysterious and I've been told kryptonite-level powerful. L'Heure Bleue was created by Jacques Guerlain in 1912 as a reference to his favourite time of day - a blue dusk, a fleeting sensation  "The sun has set, but night has not yet fallen, It's the suspended hour. The night has not yet found it's star"  The bottle is a miniature monument to love with a hollow heart shaped stopper which alludes to the romantic pre-war years. Clearly, I am a total sucker for this kind of thing but nevertheless, it's a masterpiece of a scent.

Blue Music: Blue by Joni Mitchell

This album turned 45 this year...the album of my youth and my heart. Written by Joni Mitchell at the end of her relationship with James Taylor. For me it's a long hot summer spent with my best friend in Florence, gallivanting about in cinquecentos. It reminds me of singing 'I am a lonely painter, I live in a box of paints' at the top of my voice in a little flat off the Santa Spirito. It takes me back and yet always sounds fresh. If you've ever listened to the lyrics of Case of You it's a tower of a song on love, infidelity, infatuation and pondering forgiveness. I could write pages on my appreciation of its artistry. It is one of the best albums ever made. 

So recently I turned this on and tuned on out.

Blue Clothes - WHAT I'VE BEEN WEARING RECENTLY

Favourite Blue Harlequin  Coat - My first purchase from Lime Green Bow. 

Blue Carpet Bag from Sluiz Ibiza

Self-Portrait Powder Floral Blue Dress

This is on my shopping list. Vintage from here

Andy Pandy Thakoon Jumpsuit. Which clearly makes me so happy!

Close up on the collar of my vintage Jean Muir dress

Still my favourite. Theyskens Theory Bubble dress. 

The perfect sunglasses from Celine. I've worn these everyday since I've bought them.

Vilshenko Blue Silk Moroccan Anais dress. Total heaven.

Turquoise bracelet I bought in Florence all those years ago

Twinkle Toes - French Sole delights

D&G inspiration in Harpers Bazaar. On my wish list.
However, an unjustifiable amount of £!

The blue section of my wardrobe right now.

Birthday Blues - I think not!

Best birthday ever! The most beautiful navy blue, wild floral Olivia Von Halle silk PJs from my darling friend and my Breakfast at Tiffany's eye mask from another. I usually hate going to bed but since acquiring these beauties I can't wait for lights out. 

Always channelling this.

Blue Book: The Course of Love by Alain de Botton

I have a crush on genius Alain de Botton and have done for about 12 years. I have religiously read and re-read each of his novels. My favourite being Essays in Love followed by The Romantic Movement and Kiss and Tell. So you can imagine my delight when his new book was published...a young couple meet, get married but it's about their happily ever after, after that - which is tackled in the way that only Alain de Botton seems to manage - huge subjects, concisely documented and philosophically observed, with humour and knowing.

And how convenient that the cover should match my dress, sunglasses and handbag. Thank you Alain!

But the most beautiful blue is the one on a day like today when you can look up and see the vast dome of the endless sky. It is always the perfect backdrop for everything and never goes out of fashion. Dreamy, hopeful and all the good things. As Van Gogh once said:
  'I never get tired of the blue sky.'
Neither do I Vince! Blue skies ahead for everyone please!

Beautiful London today. No filter!

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Me, Andy Warhol and the Baader Meinhof Phenomenon

"Everyone must have a fantasy..."

-Andy Warhol

I have a fantasy. A fantasy of having a blog that I update weekly. It seems I have gone tri annual...?

But I've been busy! I've been busy missing New York. I  tried to enjoy London but couldn't shift the feeling that I was meant to be there and not here. I resisted calling Autumn 'Fall',  I tried to ignore the fact that the city lights were winking at me from across the ocean, I could hear the wild promise of mystery and beauty calling me back to my spiritual home. But I've put my fingers in my ears and poured myself another cup of tea.

It all began with a documentary which I watched from my bed on a rainy Sunday afternoon. The arts correspondent from Newsnight took it upon himself to live a day in the life of Andy Warhol. Hanging out with all his surviving cronies and visiting his old haunts.  I was completely gripped. When the credits rolled I lamented my geography and berated the fact that I was tucked up in bed in such bucolic surroundings, gazing at my iPad, not arriving on a white horse at Studio 54 in a red dress, under a glitter-ball. I watched it five and a half times more. How I longed to have lived in 60s New York...The Chelsea Girls, Bianca Jagger, Frank O'Hara poems, Betsey Johnson, Campbell's Soup, International Velvet, Edie Sedgwick lying around in her underwear and earrings, Candy Darling, Brillo Pads, Baby Jane Holzer, The Velvet Underground..the dancing, the parties, the very questionable films of people asleep. Without actually wanting to BE Andy Warhol (I think that would be a bit creepy) - I slightly envied the life he led...lying in bed until 5 in the afternoon, (although I have actually been known to do this on more that one occasion) then going to The Factory to hang out and make Art, followed by an evening at Serendipity with all his team to eat Frozen Hot Chocolate...on to another party, another dance, another scene.

 So I called my friend in New York and discussed how I could sell all my worldly possessions (not my clothes) and up sticks to the States to create my own pocket of 60s Manhattan in 2015. For the early adopters of my blog you may recall my musings on my love for NYC. For those of you late to the party( that never quite gets going) you can reminisce with me here. 

In the post a matter of days later, a parcel with a transatlantic stamp tied with brown string arrived. Unwrapped to reveal a rather heavy tome called Polaroids. 'Saw this and thought of you' scrawled the missive from my dear friend 'Until you can get here - possibly by time travel, I'm sending Warhol's Manhattan to you. Create your own!'

With that advice in mind I picked up my Polaroid camera and set about documenting my life, for my lesser spotted blog.***

Then something strange started to happen.I don't know if it was the turning leaves and changing seasons...winds in the East and a mist coming in, but London suddenly had a distinctly Warholian feeling. Everything was bright, colourful and graphic and took on a glamour that I hadn't witnessed before this side of the ocean. All of a sudden my London life started to make strange (let's face it, mainly sartorial) parallels with Andy's Manhattan.  You might ask, how much do I have in common with Mr Andrew Warhola Junior from Pittsburgh? 

It turns out, not a lot. But...EVERYWHERE I went, every snap I took, Andy was there or his paintings or his prints. He just kept popping up in my path! Now this could be something to do with the fact that clothes from that era have come back in to fashion which intrinsically made everything feel a little 60s and 70s as I gravitated towards the prints and colours and style. Or it simply could have been my mindset. Had I possibly cosmically ordered my life into a day, a week, a month in the life of old Soup Cans himself? Was my life turning into a Newsnight special? Or as my friend pointed out when I relayed the weird coincidences - whether it was merely The Baader Meinhof Phenomenon - that thing when you hear a new word and then you see it wherever you go.

This is the book! Andy Warhol Polaroids from Taschen. 

Pull up to the bumper baby! Pictures of  the other Grace, Bianca Jagger, Truman Capote, 

Audrey Hepburn, Lee Radizwill

and lots and lots of willies.

  

Now I could have read all the signs and taken them as an indicator to get on the first plane to JFK and say Ciao Manhattan! under the insistence that the Universe wanted me be there. But instead I thought rather than wishing I existed in another time, another place and resided in another city I realised everything I needed was right here, for now. No need to hop on a plane or a white horse at all.

Another wise friend sent me a quote from the abstract artist Agnes Martin (who incidentally once said 'I liked Andy Warhol, but was scared of his friends')

"The measure of your life is the amount of beauty and happiness of which you are aware"

- and I like that. In an Andy kind of way - it's about finding the beauty in the now, the everyday, the mundane and the weird - the soup tins, the Brillo pads, it's right there in front of you but in life it's all a matter of perspective, like art, it's completely down to how you choose to look it at or indeed, how you arrange it.

POP UP!

I was walking down the Portobello Road and who should I see staring back at me? So I popped in to Lime Green Bow and bought this 60s tasselled gold brocade coat which is my new favourite thing. The emerald green ring I'm wearing is by the jeweller Kenneth Jay Lane (most of Edie Sedgwick's HUGE earrings came from him). Lane was one of the subjects of Warhol's screen tests and a Factory favourite.

CARS!

I wore the coat to a wedding at Farm Street. Andy was a devout Catholic and had an enduring fascination with cars as a products of the consumer American society. I too am Catholic and have an enduring fascination with beautiful cars....can you see the undeniable parallels emerging?!

I wore this Alice McCall Wonder of Life silkscreen print dress under the jacket with my glittery Christian Louboutin Pigalles Follie 100 which to me, are a piece of art in themselves, but the most uncomfortable things known to humanity.

SILVER BALLOONS!

An abundance of birthday balloons - the perfect accessory to this vintage D&G slip dress and static hair. Silver was Andy's favourite colour - he thought it was the colour of the future.

Andy and his Silver Flotations

Watch the video here

FLOWER SERIES!

The Seventies called. They want their curtains back. I wore my Topshop two piece to Spuntino in Soho to their book launch. It's a Manhattan style diner where they serve up amazing Mac n Cheese. The recipe book is a love letter to NYC and I frequent the diner when I need a Big Apple fix.

I think this is also known as Man Repelling?

Rose Print Dress from ASOS

Back of a cab in Zara Cropped Trousers and striped flats from Bionda Castana

1970s Apron Dress sourced in New York by Lime Green Bow

MIRRORS!

I visited the quite sceney Casa Cruz in Notting Hill Gate.
Mirrors everywhere and lots of posers (including me)
 Andy would have loved it. 

"People are always calling me a mirror and if a mirror looks into a mirror what is there to see?"

Mirror mirror on the Warhol.  Favourite Coat from Ainea.

STUDIO 54! CAMPBELL'S SOUP! THE COLOUR RED!

Found this 1960s dress by Jean Varon on eBay. I would have worn this to Studio 54.

Bianca Jagger at Studio 54

Went to buy the Sunday papers and came across these. Coincidence?

Zara cable knit dress and Renaud Pellegrino 1970s graphic handbag. Heaven.

EYES!

Frequency Illusion? Not one but two Poppy Lissiman clutch bags. 

Zara dress and Evil Eye ring from Eyeland 
Nails in Big Apple Red by OPI

EDIE SEDGWICK FASHION MOMENTS!

Edie was Andy's Poor Little Rich Girl muse and a favourite fashion icon who I became intrigued by after my small stint of staying at the Chelsea Hotel where she had once taken up residence in the 60s. She actually managed to burn it down in 1965 claiming her oven had exploded while she was cooking a sweet potato. I have always been fascinated by the way she put clothes together. Her friends said "her apartment was chaos, piles of clothes on every piece of furniture"...I can relate to this.

Vintage Spaceship Dress and Miu Miu Shoes found on eBay

Magic Ombre Sequin Party Dress from ASOS

Very serious. Edie style eye make up, vintage feathery dress
and ear cuff from Topshop

CATSsssss!

To call Andy Warhol a cat person would be an understatement. He had a cat called Hester who was lonely. So he acquired another cat called Sam. They had kittens. Andy and his mother ended up living with 25 cats all called Sam in their Lexington Avenue apartment. He then wrote a book called 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy. Course he did.

I feel bad for putting this scarf in the Cats section as it's definitely not made of cats but it's similarly soft and fluffy. If Andy Warhol created scarves - I think they would look like this:

Rainbow Twist from Charlotte Simone

BEAUTY!

"If people want to spend their whole lives creaming and tweezing and brushing and tilting and gluing, that's really okay too, because it gives them something to do"

All recent art related beauty products that I love: Nails Inc Paint Can spray on nail varnish! NIOD Photography Fluid designed purely for selfie taking! Nars Lip Pencil in Roman Holiday! Tata Harper Love Potion! All tried and tested and absolutely amazing - turning my desk into a dressing table.

POLAROIDS!

And to round it all off - a polaroid taken of me by my favourite Chelsea Girl that came out strangely like a Warhol silkscreen...

***Where a Polaroid camera wasn't available (they're slightly cumbersome and most definitely ruin the line of a jacket)  I used my iPhone (I think Andy would have loved the iPhone! Can you imagine his Instagram account?)...so excuse the liberties I have taken where artistic license is concerned. However as Andy said - Art is what you can get away with'...which has given me rather a lot of leeway. He also said "I believe in low lights and trick mirrors - always omit the blemishes - they're not the part of the good picture you want." My kinda guy! And most handy for slightly tenuous blog posts....

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