Object of Desire: Wolford Velvet de Luxe 66 opaque tights

Sure these tights are expensive and seemingly impossible to justify when so many places sell perfectly acceptable black opaque tights.

But here's the thing: these tights transcend 'acceptable'. Each Christmas my mother gives me one brown pair and one black pair and, even though I wore tights pretty much every day until the end of March this year, I still have 2008's Christmas pairs sealed in their packets. That's because the ones from the year before, and the year before that were still going strong. No ladders, no snags, no imperfections.

They are incredible soft & stretchy, warm, and a true unfading deep velvet-y black with not a hint of skin tone showing through as happens with cheaper opaques. I do also have the M&S version and they are very good but they just aren't in the same league.

I don't look after my Wolfords especially well: they are bunged in a 40 degree wash with all my other dark coloured stuff, rather than hand-washed as recommended. And, unless an infant attacks them with scissors, or I accidentally fall into a mowing machine, I guess I'll be wearing them until the waistband perishes.

Believe me, these tights are bulletproof.

UK: £18 from Wolford US: $42 from Bergdorf Goodman

See other Objects of Desire here

Black & white pagoda parasols and umbrellas

I do like a proper umbrella when I go out in the evenings, never having really understood why one would go to all the bother of dressing up, only to unfurl a scarlet Disney or black exec pop-up umbrella in the rain. Equally I've found at festivals like the Big Chill when the plan is to do lolling on the grass (as opposed to frantic dancing), that a pale parasol is perfect for those with a morgue-like pallor - like myself).

My umbrellas of choice would come from James Smith & Sons in London but, given my tendency to lose anything that isn't tied to my body, my compromise solution, when I haven't got a nice man to hold my umbrella, is to buy my parasol supplies on-line at a tenner a pop from whoever is selling them cheapest that day. (I've seen this style or similar on sale for upwards of eighty quid at specialist umbrella suppliers, so it's worth doing your research: keywords are parasol umbrella).

These must be the biggest bargain out: I love the pagoda point and tassled handle. I'm forever being stopped in the street and asked from where I have bought my brolly.

The only drawback is that they aren't ideal for transatlantic travel: being too long to fit in a suitcase, full size brollies have to go as a separate piece of hold luggage, with a sticky barcode label wrapped around the handle, adding to the pile of things for me to misplace whilst checking in. However, amazingly, they always seem to arrive unbroken on the conveyor belt at the other end.

I found these ones for £9.99 each + £3 postage here. In the US, I've often seen them on eBay.

The DKNY Cozy

I first saw one of these almost exactly three years ago when the ever chic JD from Show Me Your Wardrobe turned up at Heathrow for a Halloween trip we took to New York before moving over here.

She has the art of travelling down to a T. She's always swathed in beige & cream cashmere & wool, pants tucked into sheepskin boots, hair tied loosely up, looking like she gets upgraded just by existing. I follow in her effortlessly chic wake, dropping my passport & boarding pass, trailing wraps & shawls, arms full of magazines & water bottle, feeling cosseted by her professional traveller shtick.

When I saw her wrapped in her DKNY cozy, essentially a long sleeved cardigan, short and fitted at the back, long and flowing at the front, I immediately wanted one. I hoped it would confer on me the same kind of traveller style that had evaded me up to that point.

But I didn't get round to trying one on until my mother came to Manhattan a year later for her annual Christmas shopping expedition. We wandered into the Midtown flagship store and there, just by the door, was a rail of cashmere cozys emitting a subliminal siren's call. They weren't cheap but they looked great on her. I flexed my press discount; she bought one for herself and, a day later in the DKNY store on Broadway she bought me one too in black merino.

It's perfect: I wrap it around my body under my coat when it snows here in midwinter. I wear it loosely over LBDs when I don't want to reveal my curves at work cocktails, drape it around my torso to look chic with pants and, finally, wear it over a T shirt on planes when I want to look like I, too, might just deserve an upgrade.

Black Merino Wool Long Sleeve Cozy $160 from DKNY.com

Tell me internets: is my skirt too short?

Look: I know I don't do outfit posts but I need some help here. I'm in two minds. On one hand I can hear my mother & lil'sis in my ear telling me I am too old to wear such short skirts. On the other, I am ALL about the short skirt, and can't really imagine not wearing them any more.

I'm wearing an LBD and a black tux here, with black patent & suede Kurt Geiger ankle boots. I'm throwing this open for your opinion internets. Can I get away with this?

Everyday & evening bags: my capsule handbag collection

I do not like bags that don't fit the essentials: Blackberry, digital camera, cards, keys, lipstick. During the day, I usually carry around a water bottle, flats & book too, but have taken to toting those in one of the seemingly endless supply of cotton bags I've accumulated from eco-aware press offices who like to use them for goodie bags & press materials.

I quite like this hessian one I dug out of a suitcase of my clothes back in London. I think it was handed out at the opening of the Fendi store during the Cannes Film Festival. (Ooh get me.)



I do seem to have accumulated a lot of bags over the years (you get given them as a fashion editor), but this season I am all about the capsule wardrobe. So this is the edit that came out of my storage container for fall/winter (because I certainly do not intend to buy any more bags):



Everyday bags:
1.Comptoir de Cotonniers Taupe leather bag. I love Comptoir's bags. This is the perfect everyday running around town number. Fits the survival kit plus a Flip camera. Goes with everything. A much appreciated press gift.

2. Mulberry Oak Anthony leather satchel with canvas strap A brilliant Christmas present from my mother two years ago. My go-to bag for weekends. (I have the mens version because I can fit more in it.)

3.Janet Collin Vivienne handbag I've raved about this bag on here before. This is my grown up, 'I've got a meeting' bag. Lots of lovely pockets for Metro & business cards, a strap big enough to fit over my shoulder, lightweight so I don't pull a muscle carrying it around and blessedly logo free. The perfect investment purchase: not cheap but not overpriced either.

Sporty bag:
4. Prada Tessuto & Saffiano black nylon & leather bag. A present from my mother, who bought this in the Prada Outlet near Florence. I wear it slung across my body for cycling, at weekends when it's raining so my leather bags don't get ruined, and on location shoots for toting the essentials of my stylist's prop kit in it.

Evening bags:
5. All Saints Black patent & twisted leather pouch bag. I do not wear All Saints clothes (they design for minimally breasted women & I don't fit their pants), so I had £100 of gift vouchers from the press day kicking around for eighteen months before I found something I wanted to buy. This bag is brilliant. It's like the Tardis: I shove things in there and even when I think it's full up, it fits more stuff. The patent makes it great for evenings, and the strap means I don't misplace it. Fantastic design.

6. Matt Murphy Distressed silver lambskin envelope purse. The perfect evening bag for me. Fits the survival kit, and there's even room for a slim paperback in case my date is late.

7. Givenchy Black grommet studded purse. Believe it or not, I was given this neat purse at the launch of Givenchy's Phenomen`eyes mascara. It originally contained a make-up palette that I prised out. It fits a Blackberry, cards, keys & lipstick & loops around my wrist. Perfect for a night out dancing.

Sorting out my possessions: the storage container condundrum

I am bad: look at my lovely Michael Teperson bag in its lilac dustcover just flung on top of Godknowswhat, my Pierre Hardy gladiators just peeking out, squished beneath a Liberty shoe bag. This, I must admit, is the condition of the New York storage container I had back in March, just before I left for California.

The container was too small to allow me to pull cases out to repack them each time I dropped by, so I just lobbed stuff in there as I moved out of my apartment. When I got back, I hauled it all out and moved to a unit with shelves so I could at least get stuff in and out.

I braved the storage facility yesterday and, after a four hour forage, I managed to retrieve a capsule winter wardrobe. I also managed not to drop anything on me this time, which is A Good Thing, as I am still nursing an unhealed hairline fracture above my ankle from the beginning of August when a crate came crashing down from on high

I do feel daunted when I go in there: it's a small sized room with a shelving unit, and it's at least three quarters full. Where did all this stuff come from? I lived in my own home in London for eight years and have those contents in storage over there. How can I have so much here?

Most importantly, over the course of a year will I have paid more than the contents are worth to store them?

But then I started rationally examining everything and it's not quite as bad as it seems. I've avoided buying any big ticket furniture over here, and much of the stuff has come from England gradually over the past 2.5yrs, so it's not as though it's all duplicates of things I already owned.

And, once you discount the huge case & garbage bag that contain towels, linen, duvet & pillows, the very large box of kitchen equipment, wellies, the floor length evening gown hanging from the ceiling, the two boxes of beauty stuff via work, approx a hundred coathangers, a stack of Vogues, the printer, my wine, a crate of cables & wiring, books, and a few large lamps, mirrors & fans, very little of what is left is what I would class as miscellaneous crap. Of which I usually have a lot. In fact, this time, I only seem to have one small box of it.

Pleasingly, I have also filled an enormous case with clothes, books & shoes for The Salvation Army, and a trashbag with knackered old shoes. The former because no one needs to keep airport novels or clothes they are too old or fat for, & the latter because it occurred to me that I really am too old to wear shoes once the heels have broken down, or the toes become scuffed beyond repair, just because they are comfy, designer or gorgeous. Or a combination of all three.

Maybe I am finally shedding my squirrel tendencies.

Selve: covetable everyday handbags

Four years ago I had the perfect pair of black calf leather boots custom made for me by Munich based bespoke shoemakers Selve (US), or (UK). I had been looking for a replacement for my perfect pair of Sigerson Morrison black boots for two years, but had found nothing. (The main problem was my skinny calves - the SM shop girls had told me that no one else had been able to do up the zips on the boots I bought. Their loss, my gain - at the time.)

It also isn't helpful that I have absurdly narrow heels, high insteps and one foot half a size bigger than the other, and very precise, anally retentive fashion editor requirements as to heel height & shape, toe shape, and height of leg. Selve managed to accommodate all these, in addition to lining the boots with gold leather.

I thought I had died & gone to heaven when my boots finally arrived.

Noodling around their website today, I was struck first by this teaser for the new winter collection:



The Saffron black boots, the St James brogue & the Venus Overknee are all lust worthy - and I love love that Selve can make these in any colour - or leather- of your choice.

I see also that they have added a small selection of bag shapes since I last looked. These aren't truly bespoke, but you can choose the colour of the bag and the strap. They don't come cheap, but they are beautiful.

I usually carry two bags in the winter, something for my laptop & papers, and a small one for lunches & cocktails.

This is my Selve favourite. The Sorbonne in Black Leather, perfect for laptop toting. £495/$650



But I also rather love the slightly smaller Montmartre in Brown Suede for weekends. £375/$550



And am completely beguiled by the Montmartre in Red Suede with a magenta strap but, like What Possessed Me, would find it hard to justify investing in a bright bag for everyday. £375/$550

Shoes, puppies, the weather: another day in NJ

The weather is still unable to make up its mind here. Today we are in a kind of seasonal limbo. It is neither hot nor cold. It is not sunny, but neither is it raining .

So far, so good. Except. What the hell does one wear? Jeans seem too heavy, shorts too, well, short. Tights too sweaty, bare legs a bit goose bump inducing. Add to this that I only have my summer wardrobe out here in Stepford. All my winter clothes languish in storage in Manhattan and, I suspect, will require loving attention after the flood earlier this year.

Meanwhile, I have only open toe summer shoes here. Fortunately most of them have a platform so I can avoid dunking my toes in puddles:



Yup, all my shoes, winter and summer, have straps or are Mary Janes: this is because I have extremely narrow feet and heels, which means that I can't keep normal shoes on when I walk. I would persevere with non strappy shoes, but I am remedially clumsy and it's just not worth the bother of trying to stay upright.

Finchley, so far, seems only obsessed with chewing flip flops and sneakers and attacking the handbags that swing temptingly from the bedpost above his questing nose. He has steadfastly ignored GG's Berlutis and my heel collection. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

ps I'm pretty sure the boys wld like me to point out that a Pepto-Bismol pink plush carpet in the spare bedroom was not their choice: it came with the house and will be replaced as soon as there is no danger of Finchley weeing on it.

What fashion editors wear when no one is looking...

This afternoon La Waffle alerted me to the existence of What I Wore Today, the brainchild of illustrator Gemma Correll. It's a Flickr group where you can post a drawing of what you've been wearing that day.

La Waffle posted her look, and I was inspired I tell you, inspired to draw my own super styling Sunday outfit. (Ancient T-shirt from the East Village flea market, complete with chocolate stains, tatty denim shorts, bedhead, chewed up flipflops & bottle lens spectacles.)



What's refreshing about What I Wore Today is that everyone has a sense of humour: instead of endless "admire my taste" outfit photos, (which are rarely done well)* you get illustrations of hangover outfits, pottering looks, & Sunday schlumpfing numbers as well as pretty dresses & going out numbers. The one thing they all have in common is an interpretation of personal style, as opposed to a bland copy of fashion.

Which ties in very neatly with India Knight's piece in The Sunday Times today which, amongst other things, looked at the way in which women seem to find it necessary to truss themselves up in the latest approximations of runway looks even to go to the supermarket or the park.

As she says, "I can’t help but be taken aback by the incredible sartorial lengths “ordinary” — by which I mean busy, hard-working, short of time, not rich — women go to on a daily basis. Surely this is a newish thing, wandering about waxed, primped, hoisted, hoicked, tottering, just to go to the office or do the school run before a stroll round Morrisons?"

I suppose the point we are all trying to make is that looking great shouldn't be so forced. It's just not necessary to try so hard. After all, even fashion editors don't hang around at the weekends in vertiginous heels & pencil skirts...

When did fashion start to trump style?

Click here to see my friends' sketches of their outfits.

*honourable exceptions: the always ravishing Queen Michelle & Susie bien Sur.

Saturday: Finchley in repose

It's 83F here in Stepford. I was woken by the smell of cut grass drifting through my bedroom window. The cicadas are still vibrating away; there are birds singing out in the tall trees. The boys & I have skimmed & cleaned the pool, and the dogs, as above, are crashed out on the deck.

I love these Indian summers. They have all the glory of high summer but none of the constant humidity. These September days are bright and crisp, the warm, damp fug of July & August just a memory.

Too chilly to eat out in the evening now, we compensate by breakfasting in the dappled shade on the deck, and floating in the pool to our hearts content, watched over by two pairs of molten Basset eyes.

It's as near to a proper English summer as you can experience here. If I was covering the shows this season, I would be cursing, sweltering in my black new season outfits & vertiginous heels. As it is, I am sticking two fingers up at winter fashion, dressing still in white denim short shorts (who says you can't wear white after Labor Day?), cobalt blue cotton shirts and cork wedges. I have the endless East Coast winter to wear tights & cashmere, boots & closed toe shoes. Why rush the transition?

J Crew Fall 2009: a virtual shopping list

My arrival back in New Jersey was heralded by torrential rain and sticky humidity. Any plans for Saturday were ditched and, faced, with a day indoors, we opted to spend it at Short Hills, a mall spoken of in the same breathless tones as Westfield in London.

We had a splendid afternoon poking through Chanel, Vuitton et al, marvelling at the women buying thousands of dollars of accessories in what is supposed to be a crippling recession.

Disliking shopping intensely, I cannot remember the last time I saw any mainline fashion in a store, as opposed to on a runway/on a rail in a fashion cupboard/ being clamped around a model's body on a shoot, so I was fascinated by the whole customer experience. I had a grand time requesting bags to be shown to me, poking through displays and turning garments inside out to check hems & finishes, with assistants hovering, clearly slightly bemused by the dissonance between my distressed denim shorts, hedge backwards coiffeur & cork wedges and my obvious insider knowledge.

Of course I was virtual shopping, as opposed to real shopping: I'm broke until some clients decide to pay me. But I did do some trying on in the stores I can actually afford to dress from. J Crew in particular has raised its game to a level as to be unrecognisable from the store's offer even two years ago.

Because of my bizarro body shape (apple: long stick legs, huge bosom, tummy), if I find one thing I like AND which fits me in a store, I am doing remarkably well. J Crew scored & scored again. So, instead of making this a post of immense length, I have turned to Polyvore, dear reader, & created a composite of the pieces on my virtual wishlist. If you click through to Polyvore, it will show you a list of the pieces, with all the prices and links to the J Crew website.

The perfect swimsuit: Ginger's Island custom swimwear

I've been obsessed with finding the perfect swimwear ever since I started my first job and could afford to look further than the High Street. Blessed with a very small back (32) and a very, very large front (fluctuating between F & GG), I had been reduced to wearing Speedo tanks, purely because I could shovel myself into them.

Swimsuits are a problem as ones without cups aren't an option (too much wobble), and off the rack standard ones with cups are never, ever big enough on top in my size. As for bikinis, it's only recently that you could buy tops & bottoms separately, but that hasn't solved my problem because bikinis that fit my front are at least a UK 16-18 & so are always way too loose at the back.

Working on the theory that boob jobs and curves were more prevalent in Miami, I did once find a bikini that fitted in South Beach, but it was wetlook, Brazilian cut on the bottom & downright pervy on top. I never had the balls to wear it in public. (My girlfriends referred to it as my pornstar bikini).

I was charged to buy one for an equally well-endowed best friend who had better remain nameless. She never managed to get further than the bedroom door in it as her husband pounced every time she wore it. Effective but not so useful for swimming purposes.

I have tried all the retailers who now sell bra sized swimwear but it has a tendency to look like underwear not swimwear, with a bias towards pastel prints. And anything above an F is very very limited in range.

The Queen's corsetiere's Rigby & Peller is often cited as THE shop for properly fitted lingerie & swimwear. When I was a 32E I did find an expensive, very dull but useful black halterneck bikini but everything else there was (and is) way too granny or just plain hideous, and they have hardly anything above a 32F.

Then a couple of years ago Tara & I went on a mission to chic swimwear retailerHeidi Klein & I dropped a mind-blowing £140 on their own label, absolutely perfect, hidden underwire string bikini - my holy grail. And then promptly went up a cup size, beyond their sizing. (Useless website for larger breasted women tho as you can't search by size, and few of their pieces go beyond a D, so you have to check every style to see what size it comes in.)

I know many people swear by Bravissimo, but I find it all a bit frumpy, with lots of huge boulder holder tops yet worryingly skimpy bottoms, and they never have quite the right combination of colour & style for me. Large size bra specialists Freya & Fantasie do interesting swimwear & are worth a look through sites like Figleaves, but there's nothing there that looks like it will work for my figure or that has ever induced me to spend $100 on a suit.

So, still no swimwear that fitted.

And then I discovered the miracle that it is Ginger's Island.

Whether you want a bondage style bandeau suit, a modestly cut costume with skirt, a classic tank or a string bikini, have two water balloons attached to your front or are flat as a pancake, California-based custom swimwear company Ginger's Island can help you custom fit swimwear to your body and in your choice of colour, pattern & finish. And, if you have a particular style in mind that isn't just a case of a small adjustment to a current style, they can also, for an additional cost, create a pattern just for you. They aren't cheap: the average suit comes in at around $150 (still substantially less than their competitors), but they fit perfectly and that's got to be better than having five badly made suits in your drawers.

Don't let the slightly tacky website design put you off: the product is fantastic, and the customer support is exceptionally good, possibly the best I've ever dealt with both professionally and personally. They also use real, older women as the models, which is fantastic and extremely unusual for a swimwear site, and a lot more helpful for the prospective buyer than seeing swimwear being modelled by whippet-thin 16 year olds, (although some of the lovely ladies do look a little alarming in a mane of hair, Baywatch kind of way.)

With 49 different types of bikini bottoms, from thongs to hipster board skorts (no, I don't know either), 62 tops from bandeaus to a crisscross back full tankini, 14 swimsuits, 37 different skirt, sarong, sundress & cover-up options, all of which are made to measure, and more fabric selections than I've ever seen:




(This is a compilation of just some of the options, which includes plain colours too) I have absolutely no idea how anyone comes to a final decision.

They cover girls' sizes (2 mos. to 14 years), adult sizes (0 - 24) and cup sizes A - J, and happily send out fitting samples worldwide (for free if you purchase!) to your exact measurements, and fabric swatches too. If you need padding they offer three different types of cup pad, including silicone, and everything is properly lined, especially important in a pale or print suit.

I orderedthis style as my basic template:



When ordering, they ask for seven separate body measurements to put together the first fit samples, which arrived within ten days. The parcel included several suits with different cup styles to accommodate different breast shapes, and I was fascinated to see how some of them didn't fit at all, even though they were the correct cup size.

Once the samples arrive, it's a matter of calling their brilliant fit team, who have masses of experience, and talking through any changes. The basic suit shape worked very well for me, but I needed a higher leg, the waist taking in, & wanted to add a couple of amendments to their design to better fit & flatter my body shape.

I have a nice back (as opposed to my horrid tummy), so I wanted the reverse to be scooped out more, lowering it by a couple of inches.

Halternecks are the most flattering for all chest types: they give a little lift to smaller fronts, and support over-sized breasts. Bra style straps can often result in swaying bosoms as the support in a swimsuit, even with an underwire, isn't comparable to a proper bra. So, on our 'phone consultation, I asked for the bra straps to be converted to a tie neck. This also gives the visual impression of smaller breasts as the eye is drawn to the narrow neck area by the straps rather than to the width of the shoulders. (Strangely this isn't the case with smaller breasts: they benefit from the added volume added by bringing the breasts closer together.)

I wanted to lose the bra back too, but the incredibly helpful & well-informed girl on the other end of the 'phone was dubious, pointing out that the lower back & halter combination meant that my erm, ample, breasts might well escape out the sides without the back strap to pull it all in. This made complete sense, so I stayed with the adjustable bra back.

Although I flirted with the idea of a polka dot costume, I went for a plain French navy as this would be my everyday suit and I wanted it to be a building block for my summer wardrobe.

The finished result:





It may not look particularly exciting but it fits me immaculately: it doesn't look like reinforced underwear, it doesn't ride up, (so no wedgies) as the coverage is perfect on my lower half, my breasts fit into the cups with no chafing or spillage, yet is plunging enough to be sexy whilst giving me plenty of support. Perfection.

Cathartic clearing out

So it's all change today. I woke up in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, am spending the day in Manhattan moving, and will go to sleep in Colts Neck, New Jersey. Not exactly what I had planned for the weekend.

But there's always a silver lining: I get to stay with two of my great friends from London and their dog Max. Their house is near the beach, they are letting me bring my bike, and I get to explore a different part of the East Coast. I just wish that moving house didn't always involve lugging cases up & down umpteen flights of stairs. This time tho, I have GG &Y who are arriving shortly to help move the heavy stuff into their SUV and thence to storage.

I've already done one trip this morning on my bike to the storage facility, narrowly escaping death on the mean streets of Chelsea when one of the several bags I suspended from the handlebars got caught in the wheel spokes & I came to an abrupt halt.

I spent an hour or so in the container, going through my cases & boxes, primarily hunting for my father's birthday present which seems to have escaped, but also going through everything.

One of the frustrations of living in New York is the sharp divide between the seasons. The winter is so wretched & cold, and the summer so steamy & hot that you require two completely separate wardrobes: furs, cashmere, scarves, boots as opposed to shorts, thin silk dresses & paperweight sandals. So I have two huge bags just filled with winter stuff in there as well as a case of winter shoes.

Or I did until this morning. There's stuff in those bags that's moved from London to New York, gets unpacked every September, hangs untouched in my wardrobe for six months and then gets packed up again. So I grabbed everything I haven't worn for two seasons and put it aside for The Salvation Army. As well as binning two bags of old underwear, & fifteen or so pairs of shoes that really were beyond the ministrations of a cobbler.

I cannot tell you the joy of getting rid of things. I am such a squirrel and I need to learn not to hoard unnecessarily. This was a very good step in the right direction.

Building blocks for my summer wardrobe

I was whinging only a few weeks ago about having nothing to wear. So, having been utterly depressed by the scant nature of my summer wardrobe (worn out pieces, changing body shape), I finally took a step towards replacing the items I wear everyday (my bleach splashed shorts and crumpled tops).

After some thought, I've decided that this summer I will be wearing short-ish shorts with blousey tops and classic white shirts, with wedges for smart and strappy flat sandals for everyday, along with just above the knee Bermudas with stiletto strappy sandals for smart.

Hallelujah for the sales is all I can say. After scoping out & trying on all the pieces I wanted in Banana Republic & Old Navy, I took a squint on-line. I really do not understand this group's pricing. Old Navy white denim shorts that were $22.50 in store were $5 on-line, and the same at Banana: a cute cardigan that will work brilliantly in LA was originally $79, $41 in store & $27 on-line. And I'm thrilled that the Banana Martin shorts are suit cut, with a little stretch and twice the quality I'd expect at the price point.

Suffice to say that, with free shipping over $150, I bought everything on-line & got it delivered to New Jersey. This is what I got:
Old Navy
Blue-Gray Women's Cuffed Twill Shorts (5") $24.50 reduced to $5 (full price in store)
Bright White Women's Mid-Rise Denim Shorts (5")$19.50 reduced to $5 (FPIS)



Women's Sheer Roll-Up Camp Shirts in bright blue & in white $24.50 each (FPIS)



Women's Eyelet Sleeve Tops in navy, white & black $24.50 reduced to $15 each ((FPIS)



White Women's Mid-Rise Embroidered-Eyelet Shorts (5")$24.50 reduced to $5 (FPIS)

Blue & white Martin 4-inch striped short $44 reduced to $16.99 ($25 in store)
Black Martin 4-inch short $44 reduced to $29.99 ($25 in store but sold out)



Grey Heather Long 4-button cardigan $79 reduced to $29.99 ($41 in store)

Eleven pieces for $190. Not bad. (Plus I bought the Martin shorts in olive & in navy in store for $25 each as they are sold out on-line, & I know I will wear these everyday.)

Obie Accessories: How to make your hair the star of the show

Breaking into the fashion industry is almost impossible. It takes not just talent but guts, tenacity, exposure and a healthy dose of luck. This makes it extremely important for fashion editors to support new & upcoming designers, not just the advertiser brands, by writing, shooting and, hopefully, wearing their collections.

Of course I don't want to wear a lot of the collections I support, so it’s immensely satisfying when I do find something I really love AND that I want to order. And that was the case when I met Honor & Natasha, the charming girls behind new hair accessories label Obie Accessories.



Based in Los Angeles, their fledgling business is based around handmade bejeweled, feathered and flower adorned clips and bands. Sure, I see plenty of pieces like these, but what drew me to Obie was their attention to detail, (even the backs of the clips are jewelled),



and that I can see a gap in the market for what they do at their price point, which is less than say Tarina Tarantino’s. And, of course, there’s the Gossip Girl effect. Blair’s penchant for Brooklyn based Jennifer Behr’s hair bands has seen hair accessories take an enormous rise in popularity over the past couple of seasons.

We met at Honor’s home in Laurel Canyon, as she & Natasha were shooting the images for their first look book.




My magpie eye caught their blue crystal clips, and they sent me one in New York. It makes such a difference when postal orders arrive in pretty packages, and Obie go the extra mile, with a crystal securing the carton in which their clips are packed, and a little handwritten tag swinging from the handle.





Thank you girls: I shall look forward to wearing it.

Chauvinism is not dead

I got dressed up last night, & went out for supper last night with a group of girls. At the bar I bumped into a lovely & charming man I know, drinking with some people I had met on New York’s social circuit whilst out and about for my old job as fashion director on a fairly serious magazine. We chatted for a bit whilst we worked out our connections before I went to join my table for dinner.

After the meal, I went over to the bar to say goodnight, and two of my (very beautiful) girlfriends joined me on their way out. As we made light conversation, one of the (older) businessmen whom I had met before looked at all three of us standing in a row, and made a comment about the collection of breasts on show in front of him.

For a minute I thought I’d misheard, and asked him to repeat what he’d said. I stared at him in disbelief.

I was furious. We are three women in our thirties, all of us serious businesswomen, highly successful in our chosen fields (one manages a team of creatives, one is responsible for millions of dollars every day), and this was all this man could find to say to us.

I almost never wear low cut outfits, as I am generously endowed and a little embarrassed about it. But last night I thought, don’t be silly, you are who you are, wear that pretty DvF dress. Well, I was right. According to some men the sum of all that I am can be reduced to my breast size.

K Mart: who'd a thought it?

Once upon a time, I would burrow through the clothes section of any store, like a pig after truffles, certain in the knowledge that I could always find something to wear in the most low rent of shops. But, as I’ve got older, the desire to hoard mountains of clothing has rather left me, and I am happier with one really good piece rather than twenty cheapo bargains.

As I wandered down to the East Village yesterday to pick up some new bike locks, I was mulling over the lack of pieces that I actually want to wear in my wardrobe. So maybe it’s because clothes were on my mind that I glanced over at the clothing section in K Mart. I have shopped in there at least once a week for the past two years, yet I always sprint straight through to the bike lock or grocery section without even registering that they sell clothes.

That’s probably because this is what the clothing section looks like:

Let me point out that K Mart is not the US equivalent of Britain's Primark, where for almost pennies, the trend conscious budget dresser can pick up fashion forward pieces. It mainly sells clothes from the land that style forgot.

But yesterday I had seen a huge blow up poster of Jaclyn Smith in the store windows and was curious to see what on earth an ex Charlie’s Angel’s fashion collection at K Mart would look like.

And, you know what, it’s not that bad. So not that bad that I actually bought something. Granted it’s more of a stop gap piece, but it was pretty, inexpensive and useful,



I like the detailing,



and that it is made from silk, rather than synthetics, although I will grant that it’s more akin to lining material than anything else.

I just did a Wiki search for Jaclyn Smith and was gobsmacked to discover the following, "Woman's Wear Daily reported that the signature Jaclyn Smith line had the highest consumer awareness of any private label apparel brand in the country." Which is rather chastening for a fashion journalist to discover, and a welcome reminder that fashion doesn't just exist between the pages of Vogue et al.

I also rather liked this silk dress from K Mart’s main collection:



But I needed to be at least three cup sizes smaller in the chest region to have a hope in hell of fitting into my size. Still, it hung well, the stitching wasn’t wonky, and it had these great pleated shoulders. All for the grand total, I think of $34.99.AseaW1Q`WW

I HAVE NOTHING TO WEAR!

I am stumped, stumped I tell you over what to wear right now. Quite apart from the unseasonal weather (it's 17C here and raining, as opposed to the normal hot & sunny June climate), all my clothes are out of date.

The summer I moved to New York, (2007) was the second year of floaty, tent like smocks and I wafted blissfully around Manhattan. Heels don’t work with smocks (wrong proportions), so I wore primary coloured ballerines & flat sandals everyday which suited me fine as I was dating a laid back guy in Brooklyn and walking everywhere.

Last summer I was busy being important, and breakfast, lunch and dinner-ing my way around the city. Smocks were pretty much dead in the water and, whilst they may have been get away-able with in the East Village, they certainly weren’t going to cut it in the fashion corridors of power, so I invested in armfuls of light silk summer frocks (bought on-line) and the kind of fashion forward vertiginous heels which aren’t a problem when you have fleets of Town Cars at your disposal.

But because I was either at a work dinner or at my desk until past 10pm most nights, and most summer weekends were spent in the office (I even missed my best friend’s wedding, curse you ex-editor-in-chief), I didn’t have the time or inclination to bother buying any casual summer clothes.

Which could be regarded as a mistake, seeing as I am now back on a writer’s salary, those lovely silk frocks are akin to crumpled & faded dishrags after a summer of dripping humidity and repeated dry cleaning and my everyday clothes are now three years out of date.

I want to go shopping, really I do. But there’s an added curve ball, quite apart from my lean bank account. My chest appears to have taken on a life of its own. My previous list of all the clothes I cannot wear owing to disproportional breast size has now grown to just about everything in the shops.

I am fresh out of ideas as to what to wear. Believe me, I've looked everywhere. And there's nothing that fits my shape out there. God only knows what normal women with big breasts do for on-trend dressing who don't have my professional's laser shopping eye.

Right now, I’m living in navy blue 5” leg shorts with a navy long sleeve crisp cotton top, sleeves pushed up, worn with red wedges, & some rolled up leg jeans (this shows my desperation – I NEVER wear jeans) which I wear out with silk blouses & very high heels, and well, that’s about it.

I have a date tonight and have absolutely no idea what to wear. I can hardly turn up to The Setai in short shorts & wedge sandals, and all my dresses from last year aren’t just knackered, they’re too light & waaaay too short for the current unseasonal (rainy) weather.

Bugger.

Sunday: Vintage brooch

This is the brooch I picked out from a bucket of junky costume jewellery at the Rose Bowl Vintage Fair for just $3.

More shoes....

These are the other shoes I bought: petrol blue fringed suede $24.99 at, yup, Payless. I have to say that these don't look like disposable fashion to me. Kudos to Payless.