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.

Courgette (zucchini) soup with mozzarella & oregano

Y made this delicious courgette/zucchini soup for dinner a few weeks ago from a recipe he had torn out of an Italian food magazine. It's perfect for late summer/early fall when there is still a glut of summer squashes. It's creamy, fresh, takes about 20 minutes and feels way more sophisticated to eat than the the recipe suggests. Of course GG & Y's lovely table settings help.

It's incredibly simple, barely requiring even a recipe. Serves four.
You'll need: courgettes, medium onion, garlic, stock, milk or cream, oregano, mozzarella (optional)

Prepare a pint of hot vegetable or chicken stock. Slice four or five medium courgettes. Dice a small onion & chop a clove of garlic.
Sweat the onion & garlic in a tablespoonful of olive oil in a medium saucepan over a low-medium heat till golden & translucent. Turn the heat down if they start to brown.
Add the courgettes & a tablespoon chopped oregano. Gently fry until soft, but not browned. Add the hot stock & simmer for ten minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat, dump contents into a blender or food processor.
Blend 'till smooth.
Add 1/2 cup or 4 fl oz of cream or milk. Blend again.
Add more stock or milk a splash at a time until you reach a consistency you like for the soup: some people like it thicker, others very light.
Season with black pepper & sea salt to taste.

Ladle soup into four warmed bowls. Chop up a small ball of mozzarella and divide between the bowls. Garnish with oregano.

Maelstrom by Roxy Paine at The Met

Sunday afternoons are for The Met. Ambling around The Temple of Dendur, peering at the models from the Tomb of Meketre, admiring the Robert Adam Dining Room from Lansdowne House and, especially, checking out the installations up on the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden.

Each year, under the unwavering stare of Rodin's Les Trois Ombres, a different sculptor's work is showcased up there: in 2007 an installation of recent work by Frank Stella, in 08 three pieces of previously unseen work by Jeff Koons, including Balloon Dog (Yellow) which reflected my distorted image back at me like a fairground sideshow.

This year it's Maelstrom by Roxy Paine, a site specific piece from his Dendroid series, which explore systems such as vascular networks, tree roots, industrial piping, and fungal mycelia.

I first saw his work in Madison Square Park in 2007, when Conjoined, two oversized silver trees, reached branches towards the skies, fingering their way through the real trees.


Image: Madison Square Park
This year he has gone a whole lot bigger: Maelstrom is a site specific 130-foot-long by 45-foot-wide stainless-steel sculpture. Intended to give the feeling of being caught in a cataclysmic force of nature, against the background of Central Park and the New York skyline, it succeeds in both being alien and natural.



The tree limbs were made elsewhere, and craned over the roof of The Met to be welded together on site. Do watch this fascinating video of its construction:



There are great flashes of humour up there too:



Due to end on October 25th, the installation's public viewing schedule has been extended through November 29th.
Roxy Paine on the Roof: Maelstrom
April 28, 2009–November 29, 2009 (weather permitting)
The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden

ps Can you spot where I shot my blog header now?!

Virtual shopping list: the perfect long sleeve shirt dress

I'm not allowed to spend any money at the moment, as I am saving up for a rent deposit, (spent my last one on a hire car for six weeks in California). So I thought I would instigate an occasional virtual shopping list series where I pick an item I intend to buy when my finances allow.

They aren't going to be big ticket items, just everyday purchases that will fill in gaps in my wardrobe. After all, I'm old enough now that I have previously bought investment pieces that last from season to season - the perfect cashmere sweater or LBD for example.

Or else, I've used my fashion editor mojo to pick out statement pieces a few seasons ahead, (for example the black cape & over the knee boots I bought in Paris a year ago), so that I get a couple of year's use out of them before they either die from overwear - this is mainly shoes - or go into storage for the next go round several years hence.

London-based Lil'sis has MS, so battling the crowds on Oxford Street or in Westfield really isn't her favourite activity. She's become the queen of on-line shopping and, much to my astonishment, keeps producing wonderful pieces she's bought from M&S online. Of course I buy all my undies from M&S when I go back to England, (for some reason well-priced bras in large sizes, 32G in my case, do not exist in America), but if I find one clothing piece a season in there I'm doing well.

So, consider me astonished to find lots I like in there for this winter, including today's piece for my virtual shopping list.

Marks & Spencer Long Sleeve Shirt Dress £39.50. Particularly liking the 5 button cuff & full sleeves.

Cheering miniature dachshund photo

Right enough with the navel gazing. Here's a picture of Posetta Baddog to cheer us all up.

New York, New York

I've been in Manhattan for five nights now and I still don't feel entirely back at home yet. This year has seen me all over the place, from California to London, Geneva to New Jersey, and the only constant has been my big black Tumi suitcase.

Last week I worked out that this year I have only spent 78 days in New York, the city which is ostensibly my home. I've seen little of my friends here, and can count on my fingers how many times I've had a night out in Manhattan since March.

Yet New York is incontrovertibly my home. I feel torn: one one hand there is the constant pulling feeling that I should be exploring America whilst I can, on the other the suspicion that my restlessness is caused by a fear of settling down, of making a commitment, and that I should just stay put for a while.

My time in New Jersey with my wonderful hosts must necessarily end soon: there is a limit to how long they can be expected to put up with me, and I need to decide what to do next. I had hoped to be in Los Angeles by now, but circumstances have conspired against that move so far.

If I can fiscally support it, I am starting to think that maybe the best plan is to find an apartment in New York, move my possessions here from London, NY, Chelsea and where ever else, and then sublet it for weeks/months at a time when I want to be in LA.

Meanwhile I am in New York until around the 28th. Hopefully I will have come to a conclusion by then.

Virgin Upper Class: thanks for the upgrade

Recently my father has very kindly been driving me the hour trip to Heathrow to catch my return flights to New York. He's pretty laissez-faire: I tell him when we are leaving and off we go. He's not one of those irritating dads who micromanage journeys, altho this time, he might have warned me it was a Bank Holiday Friday. Virgin had ballsed up my booking and I was flying a day later than planned, so I hadn't even registered that we would hit the M25 at 4pm: peak traffic jam time.

We pretty much screeched into Terminal 3 on two wheels, and I bolted towards the entrance, barely having time to hug Pops goodbye. Then horror! The auto check-in spat out a 'go to desk' card, instead of my precious boarding pass. With five mins before check-in closed, I & my over loaded trolley skidded to a halt at the end of a very long line of very loud ladies.

Managing to inveigle myself to the front of the line, trailing a fellow traveller in my wake, he & I took the forceful but extremely polite route, waiting patiently for the vociferous ladies and their ten tons of luggage to be processed, but making sure they knew our check in time had passed.

And lo and behold when we were finally processed, they told us our plane had been swapped for a smaller one owing to mechanical failures, and handed us lovely Upper Class boarding passes.

For all the flying I do, I have never, ever been upgraded. Sure, I've flown business for work, but an upgrade on my own dime? Nope. Then again I've never had the balls to ask for one. I think I might start doing so given the blissful experience that awaited us.

A two hour delay on the apron in a seat with my knees up under my chin is normally enough to make me want to stick pins in my eyes back in Goat Class. Up front where the oxygen is headier, my new travelling companion & I were reclining full length under crisp cotton duvets, propped up by downy pillows, glasses of Champagne in hand as we gently perused the day's papers.

I had forgotten my moisturiser, but no problem! Our charming cabin crew came around with a basket of delectable Cowshed loveliness, lipbalm & moisturiser included. I slipped off my ballerines into the shoe bag so thoughtfully provided, snuggled down under my duvet and contemplated supper.



I have no problem with airline food. I love the orderly little plastic trays and dinky glasses, plus flying makes me ravenously hungry. In addition to my gallons of Evian, I went through a phase of taking delicate sushi meals on ‘planes in the manner of a fussy starlet and eschewing the hot meals, but I just ended up eating them as well as the sushi.

So to be presented with a mahajor four course menu and wine list, the contents of which could be consumed on demand is a sure way to my heart. My little table had a linen table cloth thrown over it, then a tray with more linen appeared, in addition to the linen napkin on my lap.

First up was a glass of Malumbres Tinto 2005 from the Navarre. Then I swung into action with a pea, mint & fennel soup, whilst watching some high class entertainment (Fired Up! - nothing wrong with a cheerleader movie.) Look: proper cutlery & glass because, of course, terrorists only travel in economy during a recession.



Then came an asparagus risotto with rocket & parmesan: ideal plane food. Pretty well cooked and creamily comforting. More wine.



Then a strawberry & cream roulade with wild berry coulis. Photographed terribly, tasted delicious. Like proper earthbound food.



Ah the cheese course. Photographic evidence would suggest that I had moved onto the Port by now. Perfectly conditioned Oxford Blue, Lancashire & Cornish Brie with oatcakes & grapes.



And so to bed. The long suffering crew made up my flat bed, and I hunkered down for the rest of the trip. I was a little disappointed that sleeping would mean missing the promised afternoon tea (Victoria sponge, sarnies, scones & clotted cream).
Cowshed & Port supplies to hand:



Oh and with Clive Owen in front of me. On the screen in Duplicity unfortunately, rather than in my cabin.



Thank you Virgin: I had a ball. And I met a charming man in the check-in queue who kept me amused before & during the flight. So, maybe arriving late at the airport has its advantages after all.

*Sound of my father groaning*

Fannie Schiavoni S/S 10 jewellery collection on-line launch

Hello & welcome to my visitors who have been following jewellery designer Fannie Schiavoni's new collection as it is revealed sequentially through simultaneous blog posts on six global fashion blogs at 5pm GMT today. (See here for more information)

This is the final image in our blog lookbook.

Credits:
Photographer: Charli Ljung
Model: Ashleigh Chase

www.fannieschiavoni.com

Fannie Schiavoni jewellery

I first heard about the wonderful UK based jewellery designer Fannie Schiavoni through blog posts on Kingdom of Style, so it's apt that Fannie has decided to launch her SS10 collection on-line by gathering together six fashion bloggers worldwide and asking them to simultaneously post an image from the collection. Each blog will have a link to the next on the list, allowing blog readers to 'flick' through the lookbook.

We believe this is the first time that a group of fashion bloggers have banded together simultaneously to use their collective readership to support a young designer. It makes complete sense: our blogs collectively and individually celebrate fashion. Why not use them to bring talented young designers as much attention as we can muster?

So, head to Fashion Flash today (Saturday) at 1700hrs GMT, midday US East Coast to see the first image in our celebration of Fanny's delicate & beautiful jewellery, and then keep on clicking through until you get to me for the final image.

You won't be disappointed.

England: Style Bubble
Sweden: Fashion Flash
US LA: Because I'm Addicted
Scotland: Queen Michelle from Kingdom of Style
Denmark: Anywho
US NY: Liberty London Girl

www.fannieschiavoni.com

Meringues with cream

I have a hangover today, and all I can think about eating are these meringues I made the other week. I used this recipe, but instead of bashing them up as I did for Eton Mess, I just left them in the oven overnight to dry out a little more, and kept them whole.

With way too much whipped heavy (double) cream flopped on top, chopped walnuts on one, & raspberries on the other, plus some sifted icing sugar they were summer incarnate.

Object of Desire: Maison Legeron Black Bouquet brooch

The last remaining Parisian haute couture flower maker, Maison Legeron, sells very few items to the public. This handmade velvet & pure silk floral brooch in black is £280/€300/$392 from Couture Lab

Previous objects of desire here

The Importance of dogs

"So often, we — dogs and humans — just need to be near each other. We need the presence of another heartbeat, the inhale and exhale of another soul. Dogs understand the healing power of having your skull kneaded, and constantly raise their heads toward our hands, the way plants turn toward the sun."

From My Life as a Dog by Dana Jennings. The New York Times, September 15, 2009.

Picture: Posetta Baddog, Northamptonshire, August 2009

So Much To Do, So Little Time

T gave me this genius notebook when I was in London last. She knows me so well. I' m a headless chicken today: tidying, cleaning, ironing, making lunch, curling bloody hair, slapping on the make-up, packing...

God I hate packing. I'm leaving this afternoon for ten days or so in New York...it's only an hour away on the train, but I haven't been in the city for five weeks, owing to an unscheduled trip back to London for a funeral, which was extended for another one. I've been given the use of some friend's apartments whilst they are both out of town, so I thought it might be a good idea to shake the hayseeds out of my hair, see some editors & drink some cocktails.

I'm extremely excited to see my friends, but equally shall miss the boys and the Hounds. I'd hate for them to think that I am hot-footing it back to NY at the first opportunity - but I do think they need a break from me from time to time.

I normally travel with a small shoulder bag and my laptop, but this time I am dragging my huge Tumi with me. I moved out to Jersey at a couple of day's notice at the beginning of July, so brought only summer clothes & shoes with me. Although it's still in the seventies here, the mercury is going to drop later this week, and I am thoroughly bored with all my floaty frocks and sandals. So, I've washed & ironed my summer clothes to put back into storage until next Spring or Los Angeles, whichever comes sooner, and am going for a forage in my Chelsea storage container for my winter wardrobe.

Notebook made by The Cooper Family

The best hair treatment I've ever used: Mizani H20 Intense Night Time Treat

My new found love of the curling tong is not doing a lot for the condition of my hair. I'm lucky to have had shiny, soft hair in my thirties precisely because I've never really coloured it, used much product or even used a hairdryer regularly. But this year of using curling tongs has meant that the ends get fried pretty quickly in between trims.

I usually use Frederic Fekkai shampoo & conditioner, having been given a supply by the publicist. It makes my hair incredibly soft & shiny, but recently the conditioner hasn't been working at all, and it wasn't just the ends that felt dry and out of sorts. I was resorting to a cheapo bottle of silicone fuelled Herbal Essences in an attempt to regain that silky, conditioned feel.

Digging through my beauty box of editorial samples in the bowels of my storage container for some facial moisturiser, I pulled out this tub of goodness, Mizani's H20 Intense Night Time Treat:

I don't normally bother with hair masques and the such like. They're a pain to use in the shower, & I'm not much of a lolling in the bath type of girl. But my hair was calling out for some deep moisturiser and when I read on the side that it was an overnight treatment I was so there.

It's pretty thick and slimey, so this was a moment when I was glad to be single. I slathered it on & went to bed, making a mental note to wash my pillowcases in the morning.

After washing it out in the shower next day, I shampooed and conditioned my hair as normal and could feel, even under the water, that my hair was back to its usual silky feel. After letting it air dry I was astonished by the change in condition: truly a Top Ten product for me.

Mizani is a brand I've not come across before and, once I tracked it down on the interweb, I discovered it's part of a salon range owned by L'Oreal, " targeted to the African American salon/stylist and their clientele." However, given its stellar results on my hair, & the enthusiastic forum comments on the interweb, it seems clear that it's one of those rare products that works effectively on both Afro and Caucasian hair.

This makes me very happy, as one of the abiding problems of beauty writing is the feeling that you are excluding half the marketplace when reviewing products that have been formulated with Caucasian needs in mind first.

You can find Mizani H20 Intense Night Time Treat here

Surely newspapers know what they are talking about? Right?

I am confused. The Wall Street Journal (on Friday) and The New York Times (Sunday) ran stories on fashion bloggers, both of which made glaring factual errors. Both newspapers are known to have rigorous fact checking policies. So how could such basic mistakes have been made?

The errors were as follows: The New York Times piece by Alice Pfeiffer said that Susanna Lau of Style Bubble was designing for Urban Outfitters. Ms Lau confirmed that this was untrue on her Twitter feed this evening. (Maybe they were confusing her with Jane Aldridge of Sea of Shoes who has designed for UO?)

In addition her blog was misnamed at first mention: it was called Susie Bubble instead of the correct Style Bubble, although later on in the piece it was called by the correct title.

The journalist also seemed unable to make up her mind about the location of the blogger The Cherry Blossom Girl. In one paragraph, she call her, "a blogger and designer from London", and in a succeeding paragraph she becomes,"the Paris-based creator of the Cherry Blossom Girl blog". If the writer couldn't be bothered to check with her personally, a simple wiki search would elicit the information that she is French, and based in Paris.

So, piss-poor copy editing (failing to weed out repetition, errors, incoherency & structure problems) throughout the piece in addition to the lack of fact-checking.

The Wall Street Journal's piece by Katherine Rosman asserted that Jane Aldridge had, "decided not to return for her senior year of high school." On her blog today Ms Aldridge issued a rebuttal: “This is untrue...I am currently finishing up my English credit and will graduate with the rest of my class in 2010...I didn't drop out of school."

It’s common for the print media to bash the blog world. Common criticisms & mutterings run along well-worn tracks: bloggers are amateurs, they don’t fact check, they peddle rumour for truth, they are loose cannons in the news world, they shouldn't be allowed to play with the grown-ups.

So how can two of the most famous, venerable newspapers in the world run copy that has basic mistakes of exactly the type for which bloggers are lambasted? There is a certain irony in the knowledge that when the so-called bastions of proper journalism attempt to cover the blog world rigorous fact checking flies out of the window.

As a print journalist, I‘m unusual in the fashion blogosphere: most independent bloggers aren't hacks. And, in this case, my print experience makes me particularly well placed to comment on this story, as I’ve worked on one of the newspapers that ran the inaccurate stories. I know just how much they pride themselves on their fact checking. Certainly, when I was in my old position, anyone mentioned in an article I wrote had to be rung up to get the facts about them verified. So God knows what went wrong here. Surely they don't believe that the blog world should be treated to lower standards of journalism?

It's also worth noting that The Wall Street Journal piece, whilst mentioning the bloggers' real names, failed to mention the names of their blogs, (bloggers are usually identified by their blog names; even regular readers would be hard put to identify a blogger's real name), thereby rubbing in the fact that they just don't get it.

Would it be too hard to commission journalists who comprehend their subject matter?

How I learnt to have grown up hair

My hair is long, naturally blonde and poker straight. It needs no product or clever cutting. It just hangs there, and so I've worn it in exactly the same style, that is no style, ever since I can remember. Bar the Christmas holiday of my final year at uni when I went to Harvey Nichols' hair salon, (for reasons I no longer remember), and had it all cut off in one of those sleek chin length at the front, shorn up to the crown at the back bobs.

I spent two years growing it out.

No one had told me that short hair was a royal pain in the neck. It needs styling. It requires product. And hairdryers. And God knows what else for it not to look like crappy bedhead. And I am really, really lazy when it comes to things like hairstyling. I just cannot be bothered. As I soon discovered, tousled Brigitte Bardot bedhead with long-ish hair is sexy. Bedhead on a 1960s Vidal Sassoon style crop is not.

So it's a shame that I hate my easy to manage flat straight hair. It was bearable in the days when everyone was obsessed with ghds, maybe five, six years ago. I was Little Miss Smug then, rolling out of bed and, after a couple of strokes with a Mason Pearson brush, looking like I'd been straightening it for hours. But I rarely want what everyone else wants. And in this case I wanted waves. Not so much Farrah Fawcett as Rita Hayworth.

For two years, whilst everyone else was sporting sleek curtains, I religiously went to my local granny salon in North London before parties to get my hair set in rollers, before being shoved for an hour to bake under a dryer hood with the rest of the purple rinse brigade. Thing is once the rollers came out, I only had a couple of hours before the curls drooped, leaving me with something nearer to a shaggy perm than sleek movie star waves.

I gave up when I moved to America 2,5yrs ago, making do with blowing out my hair with a round ceramic hairbrush, so it at least had bounce in a shampoo advert kind of way. I had a few pro blow drys from session stylists, hoping they could give me waves, but the artful lightly tonged loose curls they added looked wonderful for just about as long it took me to get home.

Then came the epiphany. I had to have my official portrait taken last summer for work. The Selby was commissioned to shoot it which was all well & good, (thanks Todd), but the real highlight of the shoot (sorry Todd), was the hair stylist, the venerable & lovely Francois Ilnseher, who asked me how I liked to wear my hair. Wavy, I replied, whilst thinking, my hair is dry, ramrod straight, silky just washed ; we've got barely 30 minutes to effect a hair & make-up transformation from sleep-deprived, over-worked office monkey to polished fashion editor. Good luck with that.

Unfazed, he proceeded to almost produce a silk purse out of this sow's ear. First he gave me the best smokey eyed make-up job I've ever had. Then he produced a pair of curling tongs, things I - and other stylists - had used before but never to any lasting success.

I raised an internal eyebrow but, not being one to make a fuss, let him get on with it. Soon there were bouncy tight Victorian ringlets hanging around my face. I looked like the girl off the old Quality Street chocolates tin. My internal horror meter was close to screeching point, as he produced a cushion hair brush. I squeezed my eyes shut as he brushed through the corkscrew curls. Upon opening my eyes I was gobsmacked. Instead of the frizz I was expecting, I saw the hairstyle of my dreams: beautiful deep waves in a Rita Hayworth kind of way. As the day continued, the waves just morphed into gentle volume with a little curl at the end of each lock.

What a revelation. The secret was to take the curls tight with direct heat so that there was no danger of them dropping. Next day I hotfooted it to the hairdressers supply store down on Fifth, bought a ceramic curling iron and sure enough, I got similar results.

It had never, ever occurred to me that you could just brush out hideous, tight ringlets to achieve waves. A good spritz with Elnett Extra Hold Hairspray and the waves stay in for a good while too. I invested in a Braun Cordless Hair Styler ,(a small portable curling iron), for my handbag, and became an adept at curling my hair in the back of Town Cars, on trains, buses and in the loos at restaurants. In fact I'm usually better at it now than a hairdresser, which has saved me hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours in the styling chair.

Finally, I have a hairstyle that takes maybe twenty minutes, looks grown up and makes me feel sexy. A win, win.

Thank you Francois. You are a gentleman & a superstar.

9/11/09

Last year I worked next door to Ground Zero. Each morning I biked down muddy, wet, gravelly Liberty Street from Broadway, past the orange clad construction workers, the new Fire House, and through the mass of spectators who were gathered there at all hours, every day.

I would chain my bike to the scaffolding of the temporary walkways that ran alongside the site and over the West Side Highway, and watch the diggers & cranes through the wire fencing as they carved out the foundations of new buildings where the towers had stood.

Late, late at night when I worked alone in the half dark office, I would look down into the void of the floodlit construction site, and try to imagine what had been there. And fail. Such a geographically precise square cut from Manhattan’s grid system. Such a small space for so many lives.

Blog Housekeeping

F.Tape, the London-based industry directory, asked me to participate in this Blogger Vision feature – Q&As with, ahem, leading fashion bloggers, amongst whom were my long time blog friends Kingdom of Style, Disney Roller Girl, Jeanine Tam of The Coveted and Rebekah Roy of Stylist Stuff.

I've been given an I Love Your Blog award by sweet Westendmum, who writes an enchanting blog about living in Central London. Very kindly she has absolved me of any need to pass it on, but I shall give it to So Lovely, in the hope that she blogs more. Her thoughts are always engaging and I love her style.

Liberty London Girl now has a Facebook page! If you don't Twitter or use an RSS feed, it can a useful way to keep up with new posts, as well as LLG news. There's a Facebook click through box on the sidebar to the right which will take you there.

Speaking of which, if you put your email address in the little box to the right hand side, once a day you will receive all that day's LLG posts straight to your inbox.

A kind commentator thought that my email address had disappeared. It hasn't: it's on my Blogger profile. For future reference, it's libertylondongirl@gmail.com

I do try to keep on top of all my blog email, but I do get a huge volume in my inbox. To make life simpler, please could you give emails a subject so I can find them easily?

Blogroll requests: please can you email these, with 'Blogroll' in the subject line? I know I've had a lot recently through comments, but I just haven't been able to keep up, and am no longer able to accept requests through comments.

Work saboteurs

I'm sitting quietly writing on the sofa (I'm not a desk person) when Max intimates he wishes to join me, so up he jumps. Five minutes later I hear a squeaky whining from somewhere down to my right. Finch is too small to get up so he is demanding to be picked up and included in the Basset love fest.



Then Finchley decides to drape himself over my leg:



How am I supposed to get any work done when I have those silky ears begging to be caressed?

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.

Sign of the times

Five years ago, if the three of us (Muv, Lil's sis, me) had walked into the house after a long day out together, Muv would have gone to the kitchen to make some tea & talk to the hounds, and lil'sis & I would have gone upstairs to our rooms to slump on our beds, read, stare at the ceiling. (Doesn't everyone revert to teenage behaviour at their parent's homes?)

I rather like that we all now head to the kitchen together to check our email, (the walls of the house are too thick to get wi-fi reception elsewhere), and hang out.

I also feel rather vindicated that, after years of my mother telling me that I spend too much time on my laptop, she has landed in the information age with a bang.

Yup, this woman of sixty-four has not only worked out how to email and to play on the internets, but she has started a blog. I set it up for her remotely from New York one rainy Sunday afternoon and, after a little trial and error, and quite a lot of shouting at each other, she took to writing blog posts like the proverbial duck.

She's still a little shaky in the whole replying to comments/leaving comments on other blogs arena, but she's getting the hang of it day by day.

And, most exciting of all, she turns out to be a really good writer. Properly good. If you like stories about delicious food, country kitchens, the English countryside, gardens, friendship and dogs, do check out A Life Reclaimed.

What I Wore Today: Continued

Oh, we did have fun together drawing our super styling Sunday & Monday outfits, posting them on Twitter and on What I Wore Today's Flickr group This is what happens when you are avoiding deadlines/weepettes/infants/work/pterodactyls...

As you can see below, we ran the gamut of sartorial choices...(mine is on the previous post).

Jojo Moyes 's Sunday outfit - (Wonderful author)



Mrs Trefusis 's Monday outfit - (Very Important magazine person)



Belgian Waffling 's Sunday outfit (Lawyer, writer, all round brilliance.)



The City Road 's Monday outfit (London dweller, works with fashion people)



Steve from We Are Dinosaurs's Monday outfit (Talented stegosaurus)

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?

Saturday breakfast: American style

Well, American with a touch of European, as our household is French (Y), American (GG) & English (me). And Estonian too, if you count Max the senior Basset Hound, which I think we certainly should do. He is actually present in the picture, sitting with the baby Basset Hound at my feet hoping for dropped waffle morsels. Which is highly likely, as I am incapable of eating without spilling something. Pas stupide these hounds.

The cupcakes in the background are from Brownie Points Bakery at Short Hills. A FAIL, I am afraid, with a tasteless crumb, and oddly synthetic tasting frosting.

Please notice the beautiful blue mug by people will always needs plates, to remind me of home: it depicts the glorious Isokon building in Hampstead in London, just around the corner from my (rented out) flat.

Aga toast

I grew up in an old English weatherboarded house in the country that had an Aga, a very particular kind of huge British double oven & stove range, which also heated all our hot water. It was useful in lots of ways. Made of cast iron, it radiated heat throughout the downstairs during the winter, and was hot enough to dry wet outer things, and defrost dishes of food on the back behind the hotplates.

There was a metal bar for tea towels along its length that was the perfect height for doing ballet exercises. The bottom oven was a warm chamber for cooking slow dishes over night, drying out meringues, and warming up sock lambs that had been abandoned in cold fields by their mothers overnight (We didn't do this, obviously, but it was common practice.)

The Aga top oven makes perfect bread, brilliant pizza and well, anything my mother brought put of it was glorious.

But most of all I loved the two circular always-on hotplates, which were covered by heavy pull-up domes which kept the heat in and little fingers out. If you wanted to boil water, you needed to use a special Aga kettle, and they were also particularly brilliant for making toast in special wire racks that left criss cross marks on the bread. There's a lovely scorchy taste, but the inside stays moist. An Aga really does make perfect toast. It's the taste of my childhood.

Last week I went to Rose's funeral in Leicestershire. She was the only person I knew who still had a proper kitchen range, and at the wonderful house parties at Home Farm, hosted by her and by her children Nick & Suze, we used to make piles of buttery toast in the morning, which was usually eaten with marmalade as we attempted to battle hangovers from long evenings drinking port around the silver laden mahogany dining table.

At her new house she had had an Aga installed, and the morning after the funeral I made buttery toast for everyone as we gathered in fits & starts in the new kitchen for breakfast. And silently thought of her.

William Walker's First Year of Marriage: A Horror Story by Matt Rudd

I'm not going to lie by pretending that author & Sunday Times journalist Matt Rudd is a complete stranger to me, my sister or several close friends. Nor am I going to pretend that I didn't costume design his wife's (excellent) short film. Or that we didn't once work together on a British magazine.

The reason I'm getting all that out of the way is because I'd like to suggest that you all rush off to buy Matt's new book: William Walker's First Year of Marriage: A Horror Story which is published in the UK today, but several of you lovely readers know full well that Matt & I have been friends since, oh Christ, maybe 1999, and may suspect that I am merely plugging his book as an act of friendship.


Fortunately, my code of ethics remains intact in this case, as Matt is, and always has been one of the funniest writers I know. I still remember reading his first short stories about travelling in bizarre and, at the time, off the beaten track places and hooting with laughter. In fact, I believe I may even have got him to sign my copy of some obscure paperback publication that featured his first published stories. (Matt, I'm fully expecting to educate my future children off the proceeds of that in years to come.)

I read the first draft of William Walker's First Year of Marriage: A Horror Story quite some time ago, and loved it, although did feel duty bound to check with his wife H that the vignettes within were products of Matt's fertile imagination and not recounts of actual happenings after they got married.

Matt is on Twitter here (although he claims to Tweet only under duress from his publishers), and you can read his columns from The Sunday Times here. And, of course, buy William Walker's First Year of Marriage: A Horror Story it by clicking on the book title in this post.

Heinz Baked Beans: English style

There aren't that many foods I miss over here in America. I'm certainly not one of those Englishwomen abroad who spends her days dreaming of playing supermarket sweep in the sausage section of Myers of Keswick on Greenwich Street before sipping cups of cruelly over priced Earl Grey in Tea & Sympathy, (surrounded by curious Americans) and moving onto (a portion of) fish & chips (vinegar, wrapped) at A Salt & Battery just up the block.

But Heinz Baked Beans get me every time. I've ranted about it before but I really do object to paying several dollars for imported cans of them over here. (American Heinz Baked Beans are a very different beast: more molasses, very sweet, very odd to an English palate.) Which is why I eat a lot of them when I go back to England. Babysitting for C the other weekend, she realised there was no supper for me.

Not a problem, I replied, lead me to the larder.

And, sure enough, as in all proper English homes, was a supply of the red gold. Even more impressive were the new microwave portions: I know they aren't very environmentally friendly but for a one person supper, they are super convenient.



I cooked them for twice as long as recommended, so they went super-sludgey, then toasted thick white sliced bread, which was then slathered with an inch of Kerrygold. Boarding school days means I also like beans on bread as opposed to toast. Why choose? I muttered.



Heaven. Especially considering American white sliced is DISGUSTING. Instead of the floppy fresh stuff we get in Britain, it's hard, almost stale in both feel & taste. And as for the butter...it just doesn't taste very buttery. I am reduced to buying Kerrygold for $4.99 a packet and eeking it out.

Finchley at three months