Tuesday 23 August 2011

PRADA SNAKE

I had a dream not too long ago (call it a nightmare if you will) where my ma threw a python at me.

My fear of snakes meant I bolted upright at around 3am and spent the rest of the night in a cold sweat. Somewhere in there I made a little midnight bready snack involving peanut butter and jam - you know to help me fall asleep ; p

Well if I could have woken up and seen these Prada snakeskin stunners things would have gone much better.



Lush! I'm still trying to track down which of the girls in the AnOther team put these up. Very tempted to pretend to need something from under the desk of the AnOther side of the office and see if I can spy these mamajama's up close. Oh and did I tell you they've only gone and asked me to stay on here at Dazed & Confused and offered me a job!!!

Praise the Lord indeed.

kiss.

Monday 15 August 2011

TROUBLE

Yikes! I'm in trouble aren't I.

The whole of July and not even a single post from me.

My conscious is beating me up big stylee.

And now we're in August and I got the nerve to pick up my virtual pen and start writing... well I better make up for lost time.

kiss.

Thursday 30 June 2011

SATELLITE VOICES

Ere pst! Have you checked out Satellite Voices.

If not what you waiting for, go click and peruse through the latest articles on fashion, arts, photography, music and culture from around the world. A collaboration between Dazed and Swatch this is making me feel real good.

Just check out Matanza below for some of the musical goodness SV has to offer.



kiss.

Tuesday 28 June 2011

MEGA

Wow I've been away a pretty second but what a pretty second it has been.

After THE most amazing five days in Glastonbury I received the great news that I am starting as a Dazed and Confused Digital Marketing Intern tomorrow.

Mega! Seriously extra large.

Chuffed to bits.

So welcome back gang and let's get this blog back on the road.

kiss.

Monday 20 June 2011

GLASTONBURY

The grand-papa of UK festivals is merely three days away now and with heavy rain clouds forecast looks like it's full on mud madness this year.

= D



This photograph by Brain Walker is THE one. Beam me up Scotty! This gang is mega.

kiss.

Friday 17 June 2011

WAH!

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Wah! of the day to bring some joy before the weekend.



kiss.

CELINE

Seriously that Phoebe Philo kills me every season.

Well tailored, paired down luxe has always been a lustful area of fashion - my main point of reference 70s YSL and co, however what Phoebe does at Celine is present this to an audience that may have not been around during those hedonistic years of dressing.

Look at the colours, textures and pointy edges of the AW11 collection, it's so sharp it it's kind of giving me a nose bleed. And I love it.

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Indeed, it takes a lot of confidence to pull of basics and precision tailoring with aplomb and style. In the early millennium we were bombarded with too much 'bling' (man I hate that word but it is the only way to capture that look) and it took a wave of designers to give us some respite from what was fast becoming crass and
'headachey'.

Still sick of it? Go on take some fashion pills courtesy of Phoebe.

Now where's that Celine Pre-SS12 collection to kill me softly.

kiss.

Thursday 16 June 2011

GREETINGS

I'd like to say "Buon giorno!" to all my new readers who have passed by these bloggy waters recently.

So that's hey to you in Burkina Faso, Norway, Austria, Slovenia, Finland, Chile and Columbia.

Nice to see you, to see you ... NICE!

And thanks to all readers, full stop.

kiss

TEATIME

Now, Custard creams or bourbons? - that is the question.

kiss.

Tuesday 14 June 2011

NICHOLAS KIRKWOOD

IS the main man in shoe porn for me right now. And like any porn addict I need a quick fix every now and then.

With this thought I crept over to the quiet corner of my room where my shoe boxes are stacked up, checked no one was looking, turned off my phone, opened a lid and indulged for a few moments.

Wanna join me? ...






Now you didn't think I'd give you all the juice right away did you? Some other future timings maybe yeah? Yeah!

kiss.

SO ...

"Let your past make you better not bitter."

Truths.

kiss.

Wednesday 8 June 2011

VOGUE EXPERIENCE

So I've just had my Vogue experience at the wonderfully fashion curated Harvey Nichols and what an experience it was. Truly was a pleasure to meeting the likes of Lisa Armstrong, Franca Sozzani, Christopher Kane and Manolo Blahnik.

I'm a bit cream cheesed as you can imagine the event was rammed to the rafters and I'm now back at my desk at work plotting my next escape into fashion.

kiss.

Monday 6 June 2011

CAMBRIDGE

So finally here are pics of the Cambridge. Brighter than I can even begin to describe.

The perfect antidote to this grey Monday morning






kiss.

Friday 3 June 2011

FASHION FRIDAY

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Jeepers Scooby!

It's been a very short but long week here in Londinium, with the mercury rising up to twenty-three and then some the summer smells of Barbies (both ones) are filling the air to rather delightfully dangerous levels.

Locked away in Times towers there is only so much a girl can do to bring the sunshine indoors and since sending silly texts to my sister and friends is one of those forehinted things that has now ceased due to loss of phone and decision not to replace it, I've resorted to flexing some plastic.

Shopping my friends sweet interwebs shopping.

The other things like humming hymns and drowning myself in food from the canteen remain to help keep the peace while my office matey is on holiday in overly sunny Bermuda.

So in preparation for their arrivals here are some moodboards to wet your appetite while I go off and try and make contact with with my pals from Brum who are coming down for a night out London style.

Wonder how long a carrier pigeon will take?

kiss.

Wednesday 1 June 2011

UPTIME THE VOGUE EXPERIENCE

Jeewhizz!


What a crazy mad week I've had in which time I have managed to (in no particular order). Loose me phone. Realise Glastonbury is now three weeks away. Slung my new Cambridge satchel over every outfit since its' arrival (more of which later tonight). Blown the pennies for the Christopher Kane sample sale and taken five lively little kids to Thorpe Park for the day.

So now I return to the relative safe haven of the blog to return to some sort of normality.

And we kick start with news of an afternoon on the 8th June with Vogue Italia. That's right Franca Sozzani is going to be gracing our British shores on an afternoon of fashion advice giving and industry conversation. This is bigger than big. Want a slice of this amazing pie? Hit up host venue Harvey Nichols here. See you there.

And as if one fashion bombshell wasn't enough erm anyone going to the Christopher Kane sample sale? Yeah thought so.

Tried to upload my invite to save writing out all the deets but then realised the one I've been emailed is for the sample sale preview. So instead I leave this in the capable hands of the Style Bubble

Ah normality has been restored.

kiss.

Friday 20 May 2011

TOPSHOP SECRETS

Whenever we are presented with a secret (okay maybe I should de-generalise that statement) whenever I am presented with a secret my Colombo trench comes on and its all systems go for mission decode the secret.

Thankfully the advent of hyperlinks means the Topshop secret that was revealed this morning was only one click away.

And call a penny a pound this is one fine secret.

Now we all know that Pamela Love has collaborated with Topshop to create a capsule jewellery collection which depending on which source you followed is/was due to hit us yesterday, today or next week.

Follow this link to find out which side the coin fell on this wager.

Talking of bets fancy taking one on which year this iD cover is from?


Now the idea here of course is that the word secret compels us to do exactly the opposite of what is intended of a secret and not keep it. Ingeniousness PR and retail ideas are usually at their best when a small speck of fashion snowflake snowballs out of control creating a buzz that can only be filled by being at the right place at the right time.

Step forward in this case a Meadham Kirchhoff curated 'Wild at Heart' flower show and you have there the very makings of a retail concept avalanche. And the addition of Michael Van Der Ham makes the print in me scream 'praise be to God'.



It's almost enough to make you pass out.


Checking into BOOOOOOOM! this morning the print on display made me wonder surely this must be some sort of affirmation from the man upstairs that this Topshop secret is just the thing I had to come across. This first example by Erling Sjovold definitely brings me back to Kirchhoffs smock dresses for Topshop which are still available to grab right about here.





Sources: Vintage iD Cover, Michael Van Der Ham SS11 from his interwebs, Robert Tepiak, Erling Sjovold, David Ligare, Bill avec Ted and Caribou.

It's all looking really fit this Friday morning yar?

Pulls face like Bill!

kiss.

Tuesday 17 May 2011

L'ATELIER DE JOEL

Me and the wife went out for dinner yet again this Friday - seriously I am so over going out and getting plastered on a run of the mill night out.

What is it again same places, same faces. Don't get me wrong I love a dingy, sweaty dancefloor as much as the next lunatic but as I age I'm finding that one night of this a month is thoroughly enough to tide me over. Perhaps, I'm getting too old or more likely there are more productive things I can do than be in the pub every weekend without a change of scenery.


Fine food, fine friends and fine wine is the new order of the day and at Michelin starred L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon this is exactly what I got. Plus you can actually sit down and have a conversation and chill and relax, somewhat harder when fighting your way to the bar down the pub or in the club. Oh dear I'm turning into my parents.

Highly recommended and thoroughly dribble inducing don't you know dining out is the new passing out.

Three food posts in two weeks? Looks like Mr. Fried Eggs is living up to its' name.

kiss.

TEENBOOK LAUNCH

We are live.

The first issue of Teenbook is out today and my ugly mug is plastered for all you lovely readers to take a look at.

But on a serious note seeing the behind the scenes efforts of the team culminate in the first edition is var exciting indeed. Besides my ugly mug is remedied by the precision styling, shooting and writing within its' pages.




Working on an ezine is a digital project that often means the final product can be circulated to a wide and immediate audience with relative speed and ease. In fact many of the more traditional print fashion publications now offer e-versions in order to suppress our e-appetite as it were or at the very least offer blogs and online content. Just to look at a few of the players in the game (i-D, Dazed, Vogue, Nylon, LOVE, Purple) and it's clear the interwebs has revolutionised the way fashion, arts and culture writing is presented to us. Something design houses have cottoned onto, as well explored by Susie Bubble.

The idea of Teenbook is the brainchild of Editor-in-Chief Sara Qaddoura and aims to bring fashion and culture to a younger generation who in the magazine world are often left without any specific publication geared towards them.

So step forward Teenbook.

Subscribe and read our first issue here and follow the Teenbook blog here.

Dead chuffed mate!

kiss.

Thursday 12 May 2011

SO ...

Friends are for life ...

Not just for.

1. Picking up questionable men/women
2. Christmas
3. Nights out
4. Getting over questionable men/women

This year show a friend you care by making a donation to the FFLS (friends for life society).

To make a donation send a text, email or phonecall to a true friend quoting the words "you've got me for life".

CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEESEFESTbut we love it, just call me "Sophie McCheese"

kiss.

DAY 4

... of the week is so close to Friday that in itself it holds a need for celebration. It has always been referred by me as "daybeforefridayday" and with the spring like weather I'm having nostalgic moments dreaming of English summer grass. Mowed and dry and having grass fights and building birds nest at a tender age on the school field.



This theme is apparent in the plimsolls that adorn my feet on my walk to work - £2 bargains from school uniform shops have been my bread and butter of comfortable walking shoes for years.

And though my childhood happiness was more dig up the garden and rummage through boot sales with ma, a Barbie is still a Barbie unless it's a Cindy or Eliza Cummings in sky blue satin and a Geri Halliwell red styled wig like featured above from Vogue Italia.

Inspired.

Primary school P.E. (hopping over benches and horses) was a real joy and those JW Anderson shoes found on the SHOWstudio blog remind me of primary days spent frolicking around doing a rolly polly with bright coloured headbands dotted around the playground.

Fashion wise sat at my desk donning chinos, a tweed blazer and primary yellow vest I'm almost certain that this representation of English childhood and schooling is something I will be investigating more regularly.

It is indeed seen in almost every styled look in circulation. Case in point the socks and shoes combo every schoolgirl in England will have definitely taken part in as part of the rigour and joy (depending which side your one) of school uniform. Never mind the Alexa bombardment over the last few years as a sign of the English school tradition invasion. So although fashion has gone grown up with sleek sophistication and fetish elements seen all over AW11 (think Mr. Jacobs) for those yearning an anecdote maybe childhood nostalgia is just the ticket.

And so these dreaming moments of mine are just fine.

Happy Thursday daydreaming.

kiss.

Wednesday 11 May 2011

SO ...

Little toilet break observation ...

Has anyone else noticed that in vertigo inducing heels the toilet seat is a looooooong way down?

That bum to seat connection takes a while in any heel over 5".

kiss.

INSPIRATION II


sources and details: Elizabeth Johnson, chunk of copper, Fashiongonerouge, Balenciaga boots on Rumi Neely, Jason Fulford, Kirill Kuletski, Vivienne Westwood ad campaign and Tobias Kruse

kiss.

INSPIRATION

Forming a mental lookbook for me are all of these stunners. Get in my son. Just like that 'sentence' the theme of inappropriate awkwardness is something I am referring to more and more in terms of personal styling and fashion inspiration.

Something that doesn't belong together but yet has been paired to create an interesting and odd juxtaposition has seeped into my conciousness with unashamed abandonment.


Those of you that read some earlier posts from last year will know how much I love BOOOOOOOM for photographic inspiration and for the rest ... hit and miss Google searching.

Dribbling over the styling of Giselle for the Balenciaga SS11 campaign. That sense of awkardness also comes through in the Vogue Paris cover from 1968 and vintage Biba advertising.

All in all things don't seem quite right with the subjects in these images which perfectly sums up me and my aesthetic for AW11 and thereon.

kiss.