Soothing morning viewing

This was shot three years ago but I never tire of watching it.



And, in case, you were wondering how 250,000 rubber balls were poured down one of the steepest streets in San Francisco, here is the making of film:



(via Inspire Me Please)

Why I never lose hope in America

Never let your hopes die

When I was twenty-nine, I dated a guy in his mid-forties. We were together for two years or so before we went our separate ways but it's something he said on one of our very first dates that has stayed with me.

"Now I'm forty-four", he said, "I've come to accept that there are things I will never achieve, ambitions I will never fulfill. I've learned to accept my place on the ladder."

I've always found that thought profoundly depressing and, as I have got older, I have started to wonder where one stops showing promise and simply becomes just the exact sum of one's parts and no more.

So, when I caught sight of this sign as I wandered through Brooklyn Heights for a story yesterday, I felt immensely reassured.

Halloween candy: gummy earthworms

Whilst researching a Halloween story, I came across these today. Possibly the best trick or treat candy I've seen this year. I can certainly think of plenty of infants of my acquaintance who would relish these worms.

$15 for a box of 100 (plus P&P) from Candywarehouse.com

Guest post: Jan Moir, The Daily Mail & Stephen Gately

There was, rightly, much indignation yesterday over columnist Jan Moir's piece in The Daily Mail, about the death from natural causes of the young pop singer, Stephen Gately of platinum selling Irish group Boyzone which, amongst other spurious statements, seemed to infer that that his being gay was a direct cause of his demise.

It wasn't just her controversial views that got my goat, it was her shoddy journalism & flawed reasoning too (B follows A, so therefore A caused B). A writer friend here in the US, Mr Avocado of The Avocado Papers made some excellent points, so I asked him to be my guest blogger today:

"Certainly Jan Moir has every right to say whatever stupid shit she wants. But her free speech rights don't extend to automatically having The Daily Mail as a platform for her free speech. That's a privilege, not a right, a privilege which just a handful of people have, and a privilege The Daily Mail has every right to revoke.

But it is one that I imagine The Daily Mail would revoke only if people stopped reading her, not just because she said something inflammatory. (She didn't make shit up, after all, like Jayson Blair; she just drew some extraordinary conclusions from a very small number of facts and revealed, at the very least, that she's a terrible journalist.)

As it is, I'm all for idiots like this woman having platforms from which to speak their ill-informed free speech. I think laws such as those in Germany that ban Holocaust-denial speech are appalling and dangerous. Let the yahoo-bigot-troglodytes espouse their hate-speech in the open so they can be publicly mocked and discredited."

Lavazza 2010 Calendar by Miles Aldridge

I've been on deadline all week. I know exactly how she feels.

I love my espresso too.

Shot by Miles Aldridge at Cinecittà and inspired by Fellini, the 2010 Lavazza calendar is based around six classic Italian songs. Says Mr Aldridge of Baciami Piccina: "I like the idea that the woman is in love with the coffee and with the coffee cups. It is the middle of the afternoon; she closes the bedroom door, gets all the coffee cups and kisses them and has a sort of erotic love affair with her coffee cups."

Hmm. Maybe I don't know EXACTLY how she feels.

Calvin Trillin on Roman Polanski

As regular LLG readers will know, I, and several blog friends, including the always brilliant Miss Whistle and her friend film maker Allison Anders, had a massive sense of humour failure over the film world's support of Roman Polanski.

This poem by Calvin Trillin was published in The Nation this week

A youthful error? Yes, perhaps.
But he's been punished for this lapse--
For decades exiled from LA
He knows, as he wakes up each day,
He'll miss the movers and the shakers.
He'll never get to see the Lakers.
For just one old and small mischance,
He has to live in Paris, France.
He's suffered slurs and other stuff.
Has he not suffered quite enough?
How can these people get so riled?
He only raped a single child.

Why make him into some Darth Vader
For sodomizing one eighth grader?
This man is brilliant, that's for sure--
Authentically, a film auteur.
He gets awards that are his due.
He knows important people, too--
Important people just like us.
And we know how to make a fuss.
Celebrities would just be fools
To play by little people's rules.
So Roman's banner we unfurl.
He only raped one little girl.

Condensed from The Nation:
Calvin Trillin was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on December 5, 1935, and has been a Staff writer for The New Yorker since 1963. From 1967 to 1982, did a series for The New Yorker called "U.S. Journal"--a 3,000-word article from somewhere in the United States every three weeks. Since 1984, has done a series of longer narrative pieces under the heading "American Chronicles." His syndicated column, "Uncivil Liberties," is distributed weekly to newspapers. He is the contributor of a weekly comic verse to The Nation.

Happy Independence Day my American friends

Image: Flag dress by Catherine Malandrino

A CELEBRATION OF THE KING OF POP in NYC: Moonwalk in Washington Square Park, New York

UPDATE: The French Consulate have a weather sonar and the storm will be done shortly. Moonwalk still on and so is the screening!



A CELEBRATION OF THE KING OF POP in NEW YORK / NYC

Join us for the NYC MASS MOONWALK today at 730pm Washington Square Park, New York

Go here for a step by step guide on how to Moonwalk

RIP Michael and thank you for the music

It's amazing how some entente cordiale can something together in hours: A very big thank you to the organizers of the Films on the Green festival and the girls from the French Consulate for letting us use their sound system before the 8pm open air screening of Le Grand Bleu/ The Big Blue in the Square tonight

Who shops at Prada?

Standing in the middle of the temple to retail that is Rem Koolhas’ Prada flagship store in Manhattan, I was struck yet again by the dichotomy between the brand image that Prada would like to present, and the consumers who actually keep the label afloat.

I was there to return a pair of shoes with a broken heel and, as I waited for ten minutes or so for the problem to be dealt with, I propped myself against a pillar and watched the shoppers milling about the store.

It was evident that nobody was interested in the women’s’ clothes, and that shoes, sunglasses and small leather goods were the biggest sellers. Most striking of all were the customers, who were dressed down with their designer label bags and sunnies clashing against Ugg boots, tracksuit bottoms, down jackets and parkas.

Of course this was the Soho store on Broadway, which is always going to attract rubber necking tourists but, even taking this into consideration, I didn’t spot a single customer who looked like they had an interest in Prada beyond the status symbols it could offer.

Happy Valentine's Day suckers

Christmas present guilt

I’m suffering from the usual festive guilt: is it very bad form to eBay off one’s unwanted Christmas presents? I have accumulated some extra special items and, now that I live abroad, it does seem fairly pointless to shove them in the back of a cupboard to gather dust. I’m a big believer in re-gifting, (there’s generally a home for most items), but these few presents are just so wrong I just can’t see anyone else wanting them. The worst offenders are always fashion accessories: working in fashion as I do, I have very particular taste and, not least, I have made a huge effort over the past year to fine down my wardrobe to pieces that I love and really work, rather than the experimental collection I accumulated in my twenties, so there’s no space for the well, maybe, I guess pieces. Especially when they have to be lugged across the Atlantic and back.

Another Christmas card

Call me a humourless old bat, but I'm not sure I really found this e-card from fashion PR company Phyllis Walters particularly amusing.

My new winter coat

Fur is a difficult call to make. I've been a vegetarian for 22 years, a militant one to start with but, as I've grown, learnt and mellowed, I'm a lot more relaxed now. I happily cook meat for all my friends, would raise children to eat meat, don't freak out if I find some meat in a dish I'm eating, taste my gravy, wear leather - and vintage fur.

Yes, as you're realising, consistency isn't my strong point. But I went vegetarian not because I am anti-meat, but because I was anti-cruelty. If free-range, organic meat had been available way back then, I doubt I would ever have considered vegetarianism. Nowadays, there's no personal reason for me to remain vegetarian and I suspect I may not be for very much longer.

But I always buy free-range and try to lead an ethical life. Where fur is concerned, I only buy vintage, from the 1950s or earlier. I like the idea of recyling, of not adding to the clothing mountain, or pumping chemicals into the atmosphere through producing artificial fibres. I also like being warm. (As my sister points out, in countries where there is a real risk of dying from cold, the fur debate doesn't exist.)

Few of us are consistent in our attitudes towards animal cruelty, bar vegans. After all just how many battery hen-eating, anti fox-hunting people are there? Tens of thousands, I know. Along with all the anti fur people who happily wear leather, sheepskin or shearling (which very often are not the by-product of the meat industry, whatever you may think). I think the point I am trying to make is, before making knee jerk criticisms of other people's ethics, perhaps we should all examine our own actions a little more carefully?

When I was considering how to keep warm in the New York winter, I looked at these, but disliked all the artificial fibres, and resented paying for something so unaesthetically unpleasing. Then on one of my regular eBay trolls, I came across the coat pictured here.

Not only was it inexpensive at £20/$40, I loved the waisted shape, flared skirt and knee length. Like all good vintage coats, it is beautifully finished, with an embroidered satin lining, braided seams, wonderful buttons, hidden furriers hooks, secret pockets in the lining, reflecting that this once was a very, very expensive coat. So, I bought it.

Indeed, before she died, my grandmother had difficulty getting her head around the fact that a mink jacket with glorious diamanté fastenings that might have cost the equivalent of two or three thousand pounds as a status symbol back in the 1950s could now be picked up for £30 on eBay and worn, as I did, with jeans and Converse.

(I think in the 21st century fur jackets only really work dressed down with trousers or denim, otherwise you can run the risk of looking trashy. I saw a girl on Fifth Avenue the other day wearing one with a pencil skirt and knee high boots, and the look had a whiff of streetwalker about it. Maybe if one was ultra groomed, with a salon fresh do, serious jools and Louboutins, a fur jacket could work with a smart skirt, but how many of us work grooming to that extent each day? So, with a wardrobe of dresses to cover up, and seriously cold knees, I am very excited to have found a long fur coat that doesn't fall from the shoulders in that Upper East Side/Russian/Mafioso/kept woman manner.)

Break for serious matters

A close family member in her early 30s has relapsing-remitting Multiple Sclerosis. It's impossible to understand what this dehabilitating disease is like from the outside, but this very good piece from The Guardian which she found on the internet today is the best attempt I've read in the media yet. As the writer Michelle Mullen (who has MS herself) explains, MS robs your life of the simple pleasures we all take for granted. I don't apologise for posting this on my blog. I'm not sanctimonious but I do think it does us fashion people all good to realise that for some people, "even putting their knickers on is like going ten rounds with Mike Tyson."

Lost in translation

Some things just don't translate to us ex-pats. We all thought the guy who pitched up in this on Saturday night had a great costume. We failed miserably to see the inherent joke.



No. He is not just an amusing chest of drawers.

He is a One Night Stand.

Boom boom.

Picture from: Zoogster Costumes

A little bit of fervent patriotism

I've never pretended to be a huge rugby fan, but being 3741 miles from home is making me come over all patriotic.

So rah for England and all that

Pic: PA

I'm in heaven

Planet Hiltron may be the best blog ever.

Hi-lo maintenance

Susie Bubble ran a post this week about her disinclination to wear makeup/do grooming. It struck an enormous chord with me as I ran around Vogue House for the whole of my 20's not giving a damn. British Condé Nast admires the individual fashion statement & immaculate grooming tends to be viewed with suspicion in the young. I made a religion out of just not caring about beauty & grooming. I got so much free stuff that I never needed to enter a Beauty Hall, although I gave most of it away to my friends. My mother used to lunch with me and despair at my long un-blow dried hair & shiny face. "Darling, you really should be wearing foundation." The only time I ever got a blow dry was for a big work party, using my Condé Nast discount at Mahogany (the salon opposite Vogue House where everyone goes for lunchtime remedial work.)

Then I hit my late 20s. Those continual late nights & endless vodka, lime & sodas in Soho House & the Groucho started to show on my face and, even tho I have great skin, it started to need some help. And then my hair started to look wrong too. The insouciant, hedge backwards, tousled look no longer worked with my almost 30-something-ness.

I started to make sure it was always brushed and shiny, & when straightened hair was all the rage, I was laughing as my hair is naturally poker straight, but the moment straightened hair came off the catwalks & into the mainstream I bought some heated rollers, a round brush and a hairdryer. Thus my initiation into the world of hair maintenance. My saviour has been Liana at Markos in Hampstead who shoved me to bake under the helmet dryer with my hair in tight rollers. A Blackberry-filled hour later I would have cascading curls, which an hour or so later would soften into gentle waves. (She's a great cutter too - £20, bargain.)

Now I'm in New York I have yet to find someone who can deal with my hair so, much against my inclination, I blow dry if I am leaving the house, and rather admire my salon selectives bounce. I still fucking hate doing it tho, but truth is, you can't wing it over 30....

Feeding my inner geek

Am especially pleased right now that, as I am missing JSL who has moved on in preparation for visiting the set of his movie in Spain, I have finally met a charming American man with whom I can have a conversation about more than the weather. The fact that our conversations range from etymology to geology and other areas sometimes considered to be a little dull or esoteric has made me wonder about the definition of a geek

After all I love computers & electronic gadgets, can explain the Borg and theory of collective consciousness on Star Trek, religiously watch the current series of Doctor Who on-line, collect maps, like transport museums, and am endlessly fascinated by the minutiae of life in Manhattan: from the workings of the Subway to the evolution of the different racial areas. These things might traditionally be considered the traditional province of the geek.

Yet, I certainly don’t consider myself one. The Cambridge Dictionary defines a geek as boring and having no interest in fashion. Boring is, of course, in the eye of the beholder, but I work in fashion, and generally know what’s what.

Perhaps it’s time to redefine the modern geek?