At last – a joyous announcement! The Evening Standard reports that US fashion chain Anthropologie is pencilled for a UK launch this summer, setting up shop in the former Wedgwood china store in London’s Regent Street. Yippee – more accessories, notebooks, and homesy knick-knacks for us!
Until today I hadn’t bought a magazine for over a week and the magazine-withdrawal side-effects was starting to get to me (damn you Grazia for doing a Christmas/New Year double issue and thus denying me my fix last Tuesday). So thank God I found the new Elle on the news-stand today, complete with its excellent Spring-Summer Runway Edit supplement mag.
The introduction acknowledges that this season is less focussed on new trends and more about updating classics and wearing them with things you already own. How refreshing. Much better than pretending that florals, stripes and boho for Spring are something new. The magazine itself continues with this theme. As the editor’s letter proclaims; “This is the ‘NO TREND’ season. There are some amazing pieces out there – forever pieces – but no significant big trends to follow.” Yay to that. If more magazines follow the lead of many a seasoned blogger and show readers how to be imaginitive and Use What They’ve Got instead of buying one-season-wonders and copying celebrity looks (snore), fashion will naturally progress to its next phase of creativity. One certainly hopes so anyway.
I know the *insert R word here* is the biggest thing to happen to the western world since global warming but having to read references to it in every newspaper and magazine article I pick up is starting to grate. It’s boring! Inconspicuous consumption may be the new black but it will take me longer than a few months to shake myself out of the ‘I want that’ mindset that’s been ingrained in me ever since, well, birth. So even though I was fortunate enough to be gifted a new LG Netbook for Christmas, it’s not enough, I now need something for the poor darling to wear! I like a shopping challenge so the good thing is this will be something of a project, not simply a matter of walking into Selfridges and slapping down my Mastercard. What I don’t want is a bog standard laptop case. Ew no. I want something chic and sexy and possibly not even designed for the job. (E.G. my Panasonic Lumix lives in a Comme zippy purse not a camera case, it looks better and is a good disguise in places where Cameras Are Not Allowed.)
Enter the Goyard St Marie MM Pouchette ($830 in this month’s US Vogue). I slightly went off Goyard when Vicky Beckham discovered it but the good thing about this is it has double usage – computer case for work, clutch for play. How chiconomic!
[Pic: US Vogue]
I know it’s naughty to gloat but I couldn’t resist sharing… I felt like the luckiest girl in the world on Christmas day. Truth be told I would have been more than happy with just books and chocolates and books and chocolates I certainly did get. D and I decided to give each other stockings and the funniest thing is we bought each other practically identical stocking-fillers – bath/shower smellies, posh chocs, sweeties, books/cds and an interiors mag (World of Interiors for me, French Elle Deco for him).
I also unwrapped the Unseen Vogue book (I recommend it!), a second-hand Fawlty Towers book (genius!) and an amazing Peter Blake alphabet book that I didn’t even know existed. I’m a glutton for art and photography books, however many I have I still want more. Having missed the Elizabeth Peyton Live Forever exhibition in New York by a whisker I was chuffed to receive the accompanying book which I’d hoped for but not expected. Her sensitive portraits of misunderstood neurotic boy outsiders are really beautiful and the book itself is so nicely designed and printed.
Another book I hadn’t expected at all was the whopping great two-volume Peter Beard collection of photos, diaries and collages – utterly mind-boggling – how does someone have the time to create all this stuff? Madly inspiring.
Fashion-wise I was given a Margaret Howell striped blouse/shirt, my Church’s shoes which I have gone on about enough already, two stripy knitted scarves and gloves and some Rykiel stripy socks to add to my collection.
One of my most exciting surprise gifts was a Chanel No 5 factice. I’m obsessed with factices (fake perfume bottles) , in fact it’s one of the first things I ever blogged about. Only problem is that now I’ve got my first one I fear I will want more…
