Simple Village Girl

It's been a while...

2012-02-09T21:18:00.001Z

... but I think the manic nature of the last two weeks is finally starting to slow. I've been doing some work that I don't usually get the opportunity to do (while doing the other work I usually do at the same time), and having a grand old time, but I'm glad to have enough time to get back into the internet loop again.

While I've been rushing around, lots of things have been changing without my noticing – all of a sudden my twitter is the wrong way round, Topshop are selling spring-like pink patent loafers, the evenings are starting to get noticeably lighter for longer, and although it's still exceptionally cold, winter seems to be retreating a little, if these photographs we took on a weekend walk a few days ago are anything to go by.

Unlovable, Loved

2012-01-28T09:36:00.001Z

Image credits (clockwise from top left): 1, 2, 3, 4

I was very pleased to be asked to do a guest post for Jen of Honey Kennedy while she is away in New York (my first ever). The theme is love, and my post is all about things I once found unlovable, but have learned to love by thinking differently about them. It's here, if you fancy.

There have been some really amazing posts so far, so if you haven't seen them yet, I would definitely recommend a visit. Hila's post on literary love is particularly superb, as is her follow up post about publishing woes, which is so spot on.

Suitcase, suitcase

2012-01-25T23:22:00.000Z

When I was at boarding school, I had a huge old-fashioned Mallory Towers-style trunk that sat at the end of my bed. It had been my mother's trunk when she was at school and was really quite impractical in 1997, when I went, but there was something so romantic about taking a trunk to a boarding school that I insisted on having it. (I also insisted on turning up in school uniform, Mallory Towers style, while everyone else was in jeans, but that's another story.) My trunk sat at the end of my bed, full of the promise of going home soon.

Image Credits: 1, 2, 3, 4

I was given a big modern suitcase as a gift last year. It's too big to hide away anywhere, so it sits at the end of my bed, just like that old trunk, waiting to go somewhere. When I'm consumed by work (as I am now) and find myself forgetting about travel, and how big the world is, having my big suitcase sitting there – getting in the way, taking up space – but waiting for me to take it somewhere, reminds me what it feels like to just pack up, ready to go.

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In other news, I was totally blown away by being named as one of the Up and Coming Blogs of 2012 (courtesy of Rachel of Black Eiffel) at Alt Summit last weekend, alongside such luminaries as Fieldguided and Honey Kennedy (whose recent wanderlusty guest post is partly what reminded me to write this one). Hello to anyone who has arrived via Alt – I'm more than delighted to see you here.

I'll always buy you a book

2012-01-18T20:25:00.003Z

My mother used to say: 'I'll always buy you a book' and she always did. I used to read two at a time (one upstairs, one downstairs) when I was growing up, and if I ran out when there was no trip to the mainland planned, I'd read the back of cereal boxes until I had a new one.

With 'the internet', that all seems like a thousand years ago now – especially the sitting on bookshop floors surrounded by piles of paperbacks and trying to make sure I picked the right one, which I'd start reading straight away when I got home. But that excited impatient feeling all came back to me a few weeks ago when I went into a bookshop, bought two beautiful hardbacks, and brought them home with me.

I had overheard various Twitter recommendations for these two, but they were both so nice that I'm sure I would have picked them up anyway: a green cover with orange endpapers! A limited run of signed editions!

This all reminded me of this New York Times article I read last year about publishers making an extra effort to make their books more interesting to look at, with extra design features and bold endpapers, to stop us all from abandoning print for Kindle. As the article puts it: 'If e-books are about ease and expedience ... then print books need to be about physical beauty and the pleasures of owning, not just reading.'

This is how it ought to be, I think. I'd buy a Kindle just to read books I don't necessarily want on my shelf (sometimes ugly covers in my bookcases irritate me to the point of considering turning them all so that the pages face out and the spines face in) but still buy well put together hard copies. Owning books is one of my favourite things, but it adds a whole other dimension when they're as satisfying to look at as they are to read.

On handmade

2012-01-09T19:03:00.000Z

In years past, I never thought twice about places like Ikea selling identical art prints alongside identical flat-pack wardrobes, and I always turned to the huge departments stores whenever I needed to buy a gift. I was in Ikea last week though, buying a frame for a beautiful new Jon McNaught print that Ben bought me for Christmas (top picture), and it suddenly struck me just how differently I think about things now.

Having received that amazing print, as well as a fair isle jumper knitted by my mother (you don't get much more local, really) and making and giving handmade chocolates as gifts throughout last year – I wonder if I'll ever bother to set foot in a real shopping-centre shop ever again. It definitely wouldn't be much of a wrench if I didn't.

I've come to realise that the feeling of receiving or buying something made by someone you know, or even just buying something when you know the money is going straight to the person who made it, is unsurpassed, I think, in the world of buying things. I'm just sorry it has taken me so long to really work it out!

and a happy new year

2011-12-31T19:30:00.001Z

I know its cliche on the 31st of December to start thinking about all the things that happened in the last twelve months, but I find that flicking through this blog at year's end really puts the year into perspective for me, so I think I'll do it anyway.

In January, I mostly hid out in icy Mid Wales and discovered the photography of Vivian Maier, which completely amazed me. Even more of her work has been uncovered since I posted on it last, and remains so intriguing.

In the early early spring I had a huge book to work on, so I was either working on it or buying myself secret magazine subscriptions as special treats to keep me going.

The spring turned into summer, and trips to the countryside, a Cornwall holiday, and a trip to London, where I met up with Anabela and Kate, and felt really quite pleased with myself for not being too scared to (a 2011 resolution), as they were both incredibly lovely. Then it was autumn, with many many photographs of the sea, developing my first roll of camera film, and taking a leap and booking a trip to New York.

Posts have slowed down and sped up and been regular and been sparse, but every time I've written one, every comment has been insightful and charming and so very appreciated – so thank you all so much – I hope we all have a wonderful year to come.

Icy Christmas

2011-12-23T10:48:00.002Z

A few years ago, before I started this blog, I went home for Christmas (very much like I am preparing to do right now as a matter of fact) and when I got there, the weather was off the scale. The whole island was covered in ice – even the tide line, salty as it is, was frozen into sharp little shards of ice that crackled and cracked as the waves churned them about.

As E.B. White, whose 1950s New Yorker Christmas writings I like to read at this time of year, put it: 'Everyone has one Christmas he remembers above all others, one blindingly beautiful occasion.' And I think this one is mine, in terms of on-the-surface beauty at least.

While I'm half glad that it is not meant to freeze this year, as it makes driving the length of the country a bit of a roulette, the fact that the island won't look like this this Christmas (or perhaps ever again!) is a little sad. So I thought I would post these to remind myself, as E.B White also writes in a different Christmas essay: 'Rememberance is sufficient of the beauty we have seen' which is a thought that I quite like.

A birthday

2011-12-12T22:31:00.000Z

This weekend I discovered a place that I love nestling merrily in a place that I really don't like. It was a little cafe, all wood pannelled, with old advertising billboards all over the walls – Cadbury's, Hovis etc – and with smart waiters waiting to bring trays to tables. It was so unexpected, sitting as it does on the periphery of what I consider to be one of the most miserable shopping experiences in England.

But, I think discovering something good about something bad is quite a good way to spend a birthday, if you hope to start as you mean to go on, and it just so happened that I ended up there for some unexpected birthday cake last week.

I've written before about my December habit of buying myself presents – this year, I've had so much else to do that I haven't bought a thing, and as a consequence, all those things I would usually have already bought for myself, instead made lovely birthday presents from Ben and my sister. It's much better this way.

From my sister, this amazing Apres Ski necklace. I like this such a lot because it looks like a little triangular tortoiseshell boat – and the packaging it came in is delicious.

Wolf & Moon are fairly new to me, but Hannah, who runs it and makes everything, sent me an email a while ago, and Ben cottoned on and bought this little necklace for me. She makes beautiful pieces with all sorts of different materials. My little triangle is wooden with a sort of shiny gold inlay and some kind of universe-looking something in the middle. Perfect for last-minute Christmassing, I'd say.

Here is New York

2011-11-29T21:18:00.001Z

I've been awfully out of the loop these past few weeks, and, in a roundabout way, it's all because of this place – New York. Last week I made my largest-ever purchase to date and bought plane tickets to go for a whole month in May. So I'm working all-hours to try and pay myself back.

I was definitely on the verge of being incredibly excited, but coming across this collection of vintage images of the city has really tipped the balance.

I'm a terrible tourist, as I'm sure I've mentioned before, and when I'm away, I do all that I can to avoid the tourist traps and blend in as much as possible. I'm a tourist of atmospheres, I find, and want to experience things just the same way as the locals do.

Atmospheres, however modern or cutting-edge, are all borne out of the history of a place I think – out of atmospheres that have gone before. These photographs, from the early to the middle of last century, go some way to conveying the evolution of an atmosphere. I can't stop looking through them. The whole collection can be found here.

Sightseeing #4

2011-11-22T22:08:00.000Z

Just a couple of bits and pieces that have caught my eye lately.

1. PAN AM/Hair Envy

If you can ignore the awful computer generated airplane shots, PAN AM is pretty easy and fun to watch. It's not Mad Men – it's not as smart – but it is quite compelling, and does touch on some 1960s feminist themes that Mad Men only briefly grazes, which is good.

Aside from anything else though, my hair is currenly at an unprecedented and ridiculous length right now, and the 'long bobs' that are everywhere in PAN AM all look just about perfect to me at the moment. I'm definitely leaning towards getting one for myself.

2. Fieldguided/Dreamcats 2012 Calendar

Talking of things I am leaning towards getting for myself, Anabela just posted about her and Geoff's 2012 Dreamcats calendar, which I love. I have a secret soft spot for a good calendar (this definitely qualifies), and as I'm still waiting patiently for the right time to kitten up, this calendar seems like the perfect thing to brighten up a predictably miserable January 1st, 2012.

3. Sarah Brown Jewellery

I went to primary school with Sarah, believe it or not, and run into her every so often when we're both back at home at the same time. Her jewellery designs are all inspired by the sea, with golden barnacles and lovely glints of light sparkling from the stones that she chooses. Her work is commission only, I think, but I love it all, and just wanted to share it a little!

In other news, I answered a couple of questions about something I don't know very much about – film photography – on Nancy's blog last week, if you are interested to see. There are some other very insightful and more interesting answers from more knowledgeable film-using people on there too, luckily.

Disjointed

2011-11-15T17:38:00.001Z

My days have been entirely consumed by righting other people's grammar wrongs lately, so there has been little time for much else.

Inspired by this post of Kate's though, (which I try and revisit in my head every time I feel like I don't want to get out of bed – it's a good tactic!) I've been getting up as early as I can in order to get as much work done as possible. Although it's harder to do now that it's darker in the mornings, it does feel as though you are utilising a whole new period of time that didn't even exist before, which is very satisfying.

So, as a consequence, this is a slightly disjointed post of photographs that I took a month or so ago with my film camera. Next week I will be more joined up, I'm sure.

Woven

2011-11-08T21:18:00.001Z

I got another film back this weekend, one that I had in my camera all through last month's 'Indian Summer' (it takes me a while to get through a film), and I just can't stop coming back to this picture of the ropes on the dockside.

The reason I like it so much I think is because it so directly relates to to what I've been scouring both my wardrobe and the internet for over the past week or so – that is, good, seriously cosy, wintery woven things – so I was really interested to read Suzy Menkes' making a similar connection between the weave of rope and the weave of knitted fishermen's jumpers in the New York Times this morning.

She writes: 'Thick ropes, naval knots and the diamond weave of fishing nets were absorbed into the psyche of the faithful wives and daughters ... who created the protective wear for their fishermen'

Image via Muir Blog

It's such a romantic thought that there could be such a perfect synergy to the process: the rough untreated rope leading to the rough, untreated wool that the fisherwives knitted their men's jumpers with – the rope would work the sea, the woven knits would protect against it.

I love the way things like this evolve over time, and that waxy rough rope can be ruminated on enough through the decades to eventually evolve into something like the Missoni FW 2011 show in Milan, with its soft, droopy cables and (my other woven winter darling) tweed.

I also like the synergy of the fact that those basic woven mainstays of practical living – the cable knit sweaters, the rugs, blankets and plaited hairstyles – that were likely in use in the days of those knitting fisherwomen, are just as useful to me, in this twenty-first century winter, as they once were then.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Umber, Orange, Sienna

2011-11-01T21:11:00.001Z

So, yesterday was Hallowe'en, of course. I lost all enthusiasm for Hallowe'en when I came to England and realised that they don't do guising here. Guising, as in 'disguising', which involves visiting people's houses, in disguise, and singing them a song in return for a boiled sweet or two.

Nevertheless, the unalterable thing about this Hallowe'eny time of year is that, wherever you are (in this hemisphere), there is always a proliferation of oranges, umbers, burnt siennas and burgundies. Falling, as it does, in the perfect part of autumn when all the trees are just about to lose their leaves and when all the best autumnal food is coming into season, you can't avoid it, really. I certainly can't after driving to work through the Cotswolds at sunrise all last week, and having some of Ben's amazing parsnip and butternut squash soup as a cosy lunch on Saturday.

The beautiful colours that I whizz past on my drive to the office have been rather inspiring the clothes that have been catching my eye recently, so after taking these photographs, I couldn't help but compile a dream selection, far out of my price range though a lot of it may be!

1. Zara Sequin Clutch; 2. Topshop Wedge Boots 3. Missoni Boucle Wool-blend Cape 4. Topshop Sixties Belted Skirt 5. Rachel Comey Sweetheaart Top 6. Zara Plaited Shopper 7. French Connection Sissy Snake Dress (the worst name for a dress I have ever heard)

Also, a little hello to those of you that have arrived here from lovely Hila's blog last week – hello! I'm more than delighted to see you all here.

Nightlife

2011-10-25T20:08:00.001+01:00

At 3am one recent Saturday, there was a commotion outside my bedroom window. It was one of those ill-conceived commotions – the drunken, hazy, increasingly half-hearted nighttime arguments. It's a nighttime scene repeated all over.

"Nightlife" can have such weird connotations – on one hand very 1990s rave scene, on the other, students and cheap beer and loud music – but I am starting to feel that it should be reclaimed by the sober and the curious: people looking to do everyday things that their various busy lives won't let them fit into standard opening hours.

A few weeks ago I visited Glasgow's Kelvingrove Art Gallery at 10am on a Thursday (while everyone else was at work). It was completely empty – an entirely different experience to the hoaching museums I end up in on Saturdays in London. I took time to read plaques next to paintings, I learnt a thing or two and wasn't disturbed by anyone at all. I even took some pictures.

According to this New York Times article, museums and galleries are beginning to open after hours in the city, and are creating a whole new relationship between people who want to visit museums and the museums themselves. For my part, I can't think of a better thing to do after a meal out than taking a walk in the cold and then visiting an art gallery or museum, out of hours, in the warmth. Especially if it was this one, complete with slide.
Wouldn't it be great if night started to be a bit more like day – which when you think about it is a time that most people miss out on. Museums and galleries would open late, more cinemas would show films in the early hours (I know they do this in NYC, but it's high time it caught on) and maybe there'd be fewer people waking up in the morning full of regret at the memory of the night before. I for one would definitely appreciate that.

Battening Down

2011-10-18T21:41:00.000+01:00

After shivering all the way back up the hill to my house this evening, I think it's safe to say that we're definitely back on track with the seasons, which means that it is safe for me to now talk about wool as much as I like. This is definitely a relief, as I do like wool.

This weekend, I've been feeling the need to get some things in order – unpacking wool things and my collection of scarves for the long haul, sewing up long-neglected dangling coat hems, drinking as much tea as possible and thinking a lot about knitting.

My grandmother's needle book – very useful when sewing up unravelled hems. I'm entirely in love with the typography on the label, as well as the fact that some of the needles still have thread attached to them from the mending of decades past.

My mother (queen of knitting) came to visit this weekend, and cast on this lovely purple charity-shopped Jaeger wool for me – it's just a little experiment, and I'll probably unravel it all again, but I thought it might make a good hair bow, if I scrunch it up in the middle and attach it to a bobby pin.

We took a little trip to the Toast shop in Bath too while she was here, and the jumpers were beautiful. It is high time I learned some cable stitch – it will have to be my new season resolution.

Unseasonal

2011-10-11T16:17:00.001+01:00

Unexpected autumn summers, such as the one we had at the beginning of this month, are amazing, peculiar and weirdly distracting, I find.

The good weather becomes something that you have to make the absolute most of before it disappears – as though you have to get in as much sun-time as possible before someone notices and switches on the cloud cover.

With this in mind, you come up with work schemes that require park visits and get nothing done, while at the same time, your winter coat, wool scarf and cotton summer dresses are all suddenly hanging on the same rail, lost in some awkward seasonal limbo.

It was weird, but it was also glorious.

I took these in Lyme Regis and its surrounding villages on England's south coast – the very same Lyme Regis where Louisa Musgrove falls off the pier in Persuasion and Meryl Streep gets fantastically windswept while falling off the nineteenth-century moral bandwagon in The French Lieutenant's Woman.

Unfortunately, there were no such fallen women, literal or otherwise, when I visited. Perhaps if I go back in the winter, when the wind is high and the waves are fierce and the tourists are gone, I might see one or two.

Shirley, Lula, the Gentlewoman & I

2011-10-03T19:27:00.002+01:00

I like to really make the most of my magazine reading. You have to, I think, when your favourites only come out twice a year. I plan them into my free time, deciding whether to read them at home, curled up on the couch, or in a cafe curled up in the atmosphere. I also carefully consider what to drink while I read them – every magazine has its own personality, just like every drink, I think.

I'm not ashamed to tell you that I read the whole of the new issue of The Gentlewoman in one long, coffee-fuelled sitting this weekend. It's just wonderful.

When I begin to read a Gentlewoman article, I instantly remember why it buoys me up so much. For me, it's just like coffee, which (as I seldom drink it) buoys me up a whole lot when I do have a cup. The Gentlewoman always reminds me that a world where people who achieve amazing things really exists, and the old-fashioned profiles within it are endlessly inspiring. It's sophisticated, and deserves a sophisticated drink, I think. Too early in the day for brandy or wine, cafetiere coffee is perfect.

Lula, on the other hand, is more of a 'shirley temple' mocktail magazine for me. I like to read as slowly as possible, drawing it out and making its whimsy charm last as long as possible. It's sweet, but can get a little saccharine if you do too much at a time.

This lovely drink was perfect on a hot day (as Sunday was). A cool long drink with ginger ale, orange juice and grenadine, it seemed to fit old Lula's personality quite nicely.

Winter is Coming

2011-09-28T21:35:00.001+01:00

In these two hemispheres, there's always one season or another that we're not satisfied with. For the southern hemispherers, it's the hot days and nights of summer (as evidenced purely by Miss Moss's recent need for her 'summer psyching' posts, feel free to correct me!); for us northerners (I'm sure that's across the board) it's the deep dark winter. And it's on the way.

Top line: 1. Hello Mr. Fox 2. The Sartorialist 3. My sister's tweed coat

Bottom line: 4. My tweed flat cap 5. Emerson's Journal (I think picture was deleted, hence bad link!) 6. Wayward Daughter

This all got me to thinking about the things that never fail to get me excited about winter. Autumn unarguably brings the best food along with it (butternut squash – so soon!), but, if fabric can be seasonal (and I'm fairly sure it can) I think it brings the best fabrics with it too.

Summer is all pulled chiffon and dull cotton, but winter, for me, is all about tweeds, wool and sequins. Add a breton stripe or two (as I always do) and you have a perfect winter wardrobe I reckon. Layer upon layer, thermal upon cosy thermal, topped off with grey wool tights, a well-wrapped scarf and a sequin or two to keep it happy, and you're away.

Top line: 1. Lolitanie 2. Hanneli 3. Good Night, Day (via)

Bottom line: 4. & 6. Maska Knits 5. Kris Atomic

I know a man who weaves tweed on a beautiful big old noisy weaving machine, have a mother who knits wool into lovely jumpers and have already sourced a sequin/glitter wholesaler or two, so I think, on my budget of air, I might just do alright this winter.

Top line: 1. Sequin clutch (it's from Zara, I recently discovered) 2. Miu Miu Boots

Middle: 3. by whimsical
Bottom line: 4. Zara September lookbook (via) 5. The Sartorialist

Sightseeing #3

2011-09-21T20:03:00.001+01:00

#1 Dear Golden Vintage/Erdem LFW SS12 show

I don't pay a lot of attention to runway shows, I must say (who has the time to really pay attention?) but I do make an effort to take a look at the photographs from Erdem. As I mentioned in my last post, I'm always drawn to tiny, intricate pattern, and as I've mentioned many times, I love a simple, classic shape. I also quite like England and am curious about Canada, so British-Canadian Erdem Moralioglu is my perfect match.

Dear Golden Vintage is also my perfect match, for the sole reason that it must be one of the best vintage shops on Etsy. I saw this 1950s 'Mingling Elements' dress (I can certainly see why she named it that) and instantly thought of Erdem – or at least a more autumn/wintery Erdem, which is vastly more suited to the September weather that's been blustering around here of late.

#2 Fieldguided 'Milky Pix' on le projet d'amour/Fieldguided Milky Prints shop

Information overload is something I really find myself suffering from on the Internet. I read fast, then I move on. But some things stick in my mind, and I find myself going back to them from time to time. It may be because my internet life is so frenetic and these images are so calm, but Anabela's guest post on Hila's lovely blog le projet d'amour a few weeks ago was one of those things.

The best bit about the whole affair is that there are now some beautifully atmospheric Fieldguided fog prints for sale in Anabela & Geoff's shop.

#3 Food Week on Where the Lovely Things Are/BKFST

The thing I love best about autumn is the food that comes along with it. September means moules mariniere for the first time in ages (I go with the 'don't eat seafood in a month without an "r" in' rule), butternut squash risottos, and crucially (I am Scottish after all), porridge. Consequently I am very excited to see what Mallory of Where the Lovely Things Are has lined up for her forthcoming 'Food Week' (next week!), which sounds like it will be very food inspiring.

In the meantime, I plan to dedicate myself to a more thorough examination of Miss Moss's breakfast tumblr 'BKFST' to see if I can glean any new or revolutionary ideas for my winter morning boiled oat ritual.

Seascape

2011-09-16T14:55:00.000+01:00

There's such escape in a seascape. They're mesmerising. As L.S. Lowry explained his fascination with painting them: 'It's the battle of life – the turbulence of the sea – and life's pretty turbulent, isn't it?'

Seascapes are blank space with lots of little details – the colour of the water, sometimes white horses, sometimes a mirror shine. When I go back home to Islay, I can't help but photograph it in all its moods – I'm especially sad to be missing all of the drama of the autumn storms that will be coming in the next few months.

I like certain clothes for similar reasons: I've never been much of a one for bold, bright, blocked patterns – something small and intricate suits me best; soft draping reminds me of waves and unpredictable tides, and muted blues and greens are all I ever really want to wear.

The view from the ferry across the sea to Islay on a darkening night.

1. Topshop Colour blocked pleated dress; 2. Scotch & Soda pea coat; 3. Toast two-tone oxford; 4. Scotch & Soda cardigan; 5. A.P.C. Mary Janes; 6. Alexander Wang metallic pants

A Lowry seascape 'The Sea' (1963) hanging in Glasgow's Kelvingrove Art Gallery.

1. Topshop Boutique Asymmetric silk dress; 2. Apres Ski Arquitecrture #11 necklaces (they look just like little boats, I think); 3. JCrew Betsy Sweater; 4. JCrew Saunter Shorts; 5. A.P.C Ecru Bracelet; 6. Band of Outsiders Bancroft Blouse; 7. Charles Anastase Lula Dress; 8. Swedish Hasbeens Lace-up Boots.

Below: The view from outside my Islay house the morning I left.

Easy Influences

2011-09-09T15:36:00.002+01:00

I've been really getting into my Tumblrs lately (unlike Pinterest, Tumblr doesn't make me want to buy things every hour of every day (see below for proof) which is good) and I've been having a bit of a fiddle with their designs for the last few weeks too. They've been sitting quietly in my sidebar for a while, but I think they have a little bit more to say for themselves nowadays.

Easy Influence was the name of my first ever blog (I almost wish I had kept the name for this one) and is now my main Tumblr for bits and pieces and things that draw me in. What I like about it is the way the colour spread seems to change with the seasons – it spent a lot of time in the pale greens and blues in mid to late August, and is now heading for the browns and burgundies of September and October.

Girls on Floral is my other Tumblr – I didn't want to flood Easy Influence with the thousands of beautiful girls/flowers/floral images that I see every week, so I flood this one instead. It doesn't seem to mind too much.

Do follow them, if you're interested. If not, there's always that dreaded bank balance destroyer Pinterest, or the relatively safe Twitter, if you fancy. Have a lovely weekend!

Pieces

2011-09-06T14:50:00.000+01:00

The self-bought gifts to myself have been rather flying through the letterbox this past week, and were all left behind in Bristol when I took myself off to Islay for the weekend. This means, of course, that I get to discover them all over again now that I'm back.

This Topshop blouse is Pinterest's fault entirely – I pinned it, I went back to it a few times, then just had to order it just to 'try'. Then I fell in love with the 1930s style (slightly 'magic eye' puzzle) print and the lovely collar, and that was that.

This wasn't strictly through the letterbox, but, after a long search, the New Yorker and I finally ran into each other at a newsagent in Bristol, and I brought him home with me. Then we had a pancakes & nutella breakfast together – it's a real romance.

I've been reading reviews and hearing radio articles about The Rules of Civility for the last few months, and, typically, saw it in a bookshop, fell in love with the cover and bought it online (you can read how bad I feel about doing things like that in this post here).

So, I was intrigued by the content first, but it was the cover that clinched it – all matt black with foil on the beautiful typography – I hope that doesn't count as judging a book by its cover. I haven't started yet, but if it's a let down I'll be sure to let you know.

Darks of Summer

2011-09-01T17:51:00.002+01:00

Thank you all very much for your very kind comments on my last post – I'm so pleased you thought they all worked out ok. As I mentioned, here is the dark side of summer, at least as it emerged from my camera. We've had plenty of the dark side this year (as the BBC corroborates), so it fits. To be honest, these murky photographs are probably more testament to my inability to use the camera properly than anything else, but I rather like them all the same.

The flowers I found on a Sunday evening walk around a bit of Bristol I've never visited before, and the dark room is my bedroom just at the moment before the sun sinks behind one of the other buildings on the street. The poor little garlic bulb isn't so very seasonal, but he (or others like him) has featured all the way through my summer, lending purpley cloves to hot sauces and cool dips – it seems fair that he gets a little look in.

The harbour is the one I visited in Cornwall a few weeks ago, just in the evening, when all the tourists disappeared and the little boats came back for the night. Talking of little boats that arrive in the night: as I post this, I am on one myself – the late ferry to Islay, for a home weekend.

Lights of Summer

2011-08-29T12:27:00.004+01:00

I once said to somebody that the world of film photography, and learning about it all, was similar in nature to opera, or fine wine – they are bottomless pits of niche expertise where you can keep on learning forever – which is a little intimidating.

Nevertheless, I took my first camera film in at least a decade to the developing shop to be developed this weekend. It had taken me all summer to finish the film. Convinced that I would be embarrassingly handed a packet of blank photographs, I was surprised to see that they all came out, and not just that, but split themselves merrily into two distinct camps: the light summer, and the dark.

As today happens to be a day of luminescent pastels and sunshine in Bristol, I thought I'd post these summer lights, with all their pastelled optimism, and save the darks for later this week, when it will probably be grey and dark, raining, and altogether more fitting.

The lights are all luminescent and bright, while the darks are underexposed and brooding. It sums up the summer we've had quite well: there has been some lovely hot light, but plenty cold dark.

Colour Block

2011-08-25T12:00:00.004+01:00

Image via A.P.C.

I always used to read magazine articles about the dreaded 'colour blocking' with some disdain. That was until a couple of weeks ago, when I realised that as it turns out, I wear nothing but blue. I'm doing it right now. Unoriginal as this already is, it is not a new problem.

When I was about fourteen years old, at boarding school and sharing a tiny room with three other fourteen-year-old girls (not the greatest time of my life), I had the smallest wardrobe you have ever seen, and, inside it, was a sea of blue wooly jumpers and blue jeans. There was also a tan sheepskin coat from La Redoute that everyone laughed at and that I considered to be the height of French couture, but that's beside the point.

All this blue was a problem, my fourteen-year-old self realised, and by the next school year, I had entered my psychedelic stripy Gap jumper years, which were a debatable improvement.

Image via A.P.C.

But it's not all bad! I recently put my wardrobe into colour order the other day and was entirely satisfied by the result; Joanna Goddard knows New Yorkers who dress all in one colour on purpose; and A.P.C have, helpfully for those New Yorkers, organised their new collection in colour order too.

I do need to break away from the blues though, I will never carry it off the way the girl in Joanna's article can. Perhaps instead, I'll linger longer on the reds section of the A.P.C. site, and see if I can shop out some things like these:

1. Wedge Sandals
2. Minimalist Trousers
3. Boyfriend Shirt
4. 70s Jacket
5. Fan Brooch

Polaroids

2011-08-22T19:32:00.004+01:00

Polaroid cameras always seem like some kind of magic. One futuristic click, some whirring, and you get a fully mounted photograph. They must have seemed even more like magic in the 1960s, which is when the camera that took these was made, although I can't seem to find a huge amount out about the dates of the photographs themselves. All I know is that they were taken with a 1967 Polaroid land camera.

The Paris Review captions the top left-hand photograph 'Coney Island ritual' – what is so fascinating about it is that it could easily be a photograph of a ritual taken last week, or five decades ago. The photographer, Misty Woodford, has a website which reveals exactly nothing about them.

all photographs reproduced via Misty Woodford, taken from here

The pinks and blues and the general haze of these polaroids really caught my attention. I like the way that the camera is at once able to capture the essence of the carnival but also the ethereal atmosphere of a crunchy snowy morning. While I like using things like Instagram, there is certain saturation point that I am definitely reaching with fake-polaroid applications, and seeing the quality of the real thing is part of the reason why.

Whatever decade these were taken in, they must have been taken so carefully, with every click clicked with respect to the prohibitive expense of a polaroid film. The feel of the photographs is a combination of this and the real limitations of the development rather than on purpose to achieve a particular 'vintage' style. Either way, either decade, either atmosphere – I like them. Oh, and those shoes too.

The Glorious Hour

2011-08-18T18:31:00.002+01:00

It has been accidental Romola Garai season in my living room this past week. It all began with watching the dreadful Stephen Poliakov film The Glorious 39 after a 7-hour bus journey (if I had been less exhausted, I hope I would have turned it off rather than watching the whole thing) and ended with catching up on the not dreadful at all Abi Morgan BBC series The Hour. As a result of all of this (and the fact that I can't have been the only one rooting around for a 1940s nurse's cape after watching Atonement) I can tell you for certain that Romola Garai always gets the best costumes, no matter how good or bad the writing.

If you haven't seen it, The Hour is a new BBC drama centred around a 1950s news programme (called 'The Hour') which aims to break the strict boundaries of news reporting and bring something new to the growing 1950s television audience. Despite all this boundary breaking, the most unusual thing about the programme itself is that its producer is a woman (Romola Garai as Bel Rowley) who refuses to be cowed by the widespread sexism spouted by various politicians and, occasionally, her boss.

The storyline of a woman in a man's world in the middle of the last decade brings inevitable comparisons with Mad Men – but that's really where the similarities end – BBC drama is nothing to the power of the American television networks, and, in this case, that's rather why I like it. The slick offices and shine of 1960s advertising are far away, and instead we get a rather more realistic picture of what life in 1950s city workplaces was probably like: less flouncy mid-length skirts and high-level grooming; more polystyrene ceilings, grey metal chairs, terrible coffee and unashamed sexism.

That aside, I do admire Bel Rowley's way with a headscarf, colourful cardigan and a pencil skirt (and, as the Guardian points out, sleeves), and reporter Freddie Lyon's grey flannel suits. I was going to put together a couple of Hour-inspired outfits for this post, but it seems that colourful waisted cardigans are in short supply as the high street is currently deep in 2011's take on the 1940s. Just another reason why The Hour is nothing like Mad Men.

sightseeing #2

2011-08-11T14:13:00.007+01:00

I enjoyed putting my last 'sightseeing' post together so much that I thought I'd do another. I often find the internet to be quite overwhelming in the information that it holds - it's quite easy to find yourself drowning in it - so it's nice to pick out some simple things that have made an impression, revisit them, and pass them on.

1. Rose Martini

I've had a little bit of my brain devoted to cocktails over the last while - there's nothing not to like, of course - it's all the fun of baking with a recipe with a drink at the end of it. Someone mentioned the idea of a rose herbal tea & vodka cocktail a few weeks ago, and I've been on the hunt for some good rose tea to try it with. Sweetened, I think it could be the perfect summer drink. This recipe, by Jacinta Moore (of BawkBawkBawk), was done for Design Sponge a while back, but the sweet, rose tinted photographs have made me even more determined to find that tea and try it out.

2. New York Times/Dance Photography from the 1920s to the 1990s

There's something calmly fascinating about still dance photography, and this selection of dance stills through the decades tells its own story somehow. From the porcelain students with their Grecian urns in 1932 to the Dance Theatre of Harlem in 1984, dance seems to weave its own way through the zeitgeist of the decades, held together by the fact that 'Some feelings and even some thoughts are too deep for words and have to be seen to be believed', as the article puts it. These also remind me of some fantastic ballet videos my friend Hannah has been posting recently: my favourite of her favourites is here if you're interested too.

3. Totokaelo/site inspiration

I have a feeling that this might only be new to me, but no matter. I came across the website via Kate Miss on Twitter this week, and I can't stop looking at it. The layout is so perfectly simple, and the styling is clean and strong with combinations likely do-able with things you already have, if, on the off chance, you don't have a spare $794 for a cardigan.

4. New York Times: The Briefing

It seems unfair that menswear is so very accessible to women, but womenswear is so off limits to men. But, oh well. Pinching things from the other side of the wardrobe has become a favourite occupation of mine, but hasn't quite reached bags to such an extent. But! Reading this article, it all makes sense: men's leather bags are made with functionality and durability in mind – two things usually missing from the general women's bags scene – and they go with just about anything and are meant to get a little worn and scruffy over a long career – the implication being that if you have a scruffy bag, you're wiser than everyone else. Like those rose-tinted cocktails, I feel that there's everything to like about this, apart from perhaps the prices of those NYT-favoured examples of course.

& some others

* Reactions to the London/English Riots

It would seem strange to me to do a post about things that I've been interested in over the last week without mentioning the one thing I've been talking about solidly for the majority of it. The riots at the beginning of this week, which began in London and then aimlessly spread across the country (including briefly to Bristol), have been totally devastating to everyone, not least to beautiful architecture which once steadfastly survived the Second World War, but has now been razed to the ground for no reason whatsoever. I found Penny Red's reaction to the riots in London and Camilla Batmanghelidjh's Independent article on their root causes to be very insightful and this piece in the New Yorker just sums it all up. The heartbreaking damage is illustrated best by this Guardian graphic. Of course, there's always some humour to be had, andPhotoshop a Looter is pretty hilarious.

slowdown

2011-08-08T15:52:00.005+01:00

I'm pleased to be in August, the pulled thread leading to high summer's ragged edge. All (well, most) of the long-awaited, long anticipated, long-planned-for events of the summer are over and I'm already looking forward to when it gets cold enough to burn the logs I've been drying in my fireplace all summer long and drinking whisky & old fashioned cocktails beside them as they blaze away. Looking back on my posts from last year, I was at this point in July, so I consider this a definite improvement.

So, I'm pleased that it's August, but I'm even more pleased with the little details of the last few months that have been captured in my camera. Now I'm looking forward to developing the pictures from a recently resurrected film camera that I've used sparingly over the last few months.

A long-awaited piece of on-sale a.p.c. to add to my wardrobe of Breton tops - this one is by far the softest of them all

My sister's beautiful hair

Peas straight from the pod - the only way I'll ever eat them

Summer pudding & champagne, in the garden, of course

Neutrals on a visit to Cos

A little Russian family on my mantelpiece

Restored

2011-08-01T16:47:00.005+01:00

I often find weddings quite bizarre affairs, but I had a feeling I'd like this one. As it turned out, my faith in them, once only kept quietly burning by the thought of low-key City Hall, was completely restored this weekend at a wedding of friends that I went to in Brighton. It was calm, simple and beautiful. Nothing awkward, just a perfect celebration.

I always insist on taking a camera – I'm often at a loss for something to do with my hands, and a camera can keep me entertained forever. I was lucky enough to borrow a fancy new lens, which was so incredible to use that it has jumped firmly up to the top of the 'things I'm saving up for' list. I got a little carried away with the details – there were some really fantastically put-together outfits there. The brights (see below and which I've mentioned before) were particularly inspiring.

The third picture from the bottom is Ben, wearing my grandfather's tie clip and his grandfather's cufflinks (which you can't see in this picture). Quite a nice symmetry, I think. There may be a few more pictures on my Flickr, if you are interested to see more!

In other, entirely unrelated, news, I was sad to hear this morning that Ellen Burney has decided to finish blogging at Vagabondiana. Her blog was always so inspiringly put - I do hope she decides to return some time!

An English Summer

2011-07-25T20:34:00.008+01:00

'English Summer' sounds so much more promising than 'British Summer', I think. British summers are all too concerned with rain at Wimbledon, rain on your seaside holiday, rain at every wedding you're invited to (invariably held outdoors). It's a bit of a washout.

An English summer, I've come to believe, is something much more rare, but much more promising. It is cream teas and summer puddings and queuing, and being polite to the people you meet on overcrowded beaches on the scorching south coast. Oh, and it is holidaying in Cornwall, which is what I found myself doing for two days last week, in Polruan village, on the end of its own personal peninsula.

There is something about Cornwall holidaying that is very 'make do and mend'. In Cornwall, holidaymakers wear cagoules and walking boots, pay over the odds and take their dogs along with them. There is nothing stylish or glamerous about a Cornwall holiday, but something nostalgic and stoic and traditional instead. People go back to the same place time after time, for no other reason than that that is where they've always gone, and they know who will be there.

I found Polruan and Fowey, further east along the coast, and probably easier to get to for the gasping city populace desperate for some free air, quite different a place to St Ives, which I visited last summer. There was something more sophisticate about St Ives that Polruan and Fowey just don't have: it has a more high-brow history I suppose, that clear bright light, and the Tate Britain there does add some level of gravitas to a certain corner of it. It's interesting that places along the very same coastline can be so very different in their characters.

Sightseeing #1

2011-07-18T19:00:00.004+01:00

As I'm sure everybody knows, when a computer dies, it is a bit of a disaster. My laptop took a bit of a dive this week, selfishly taking with it all of my pictures and two posts in progress. But, every cloud has a silver lining, and as I've been miserably clicking through the internet on Benjamin's work computer over the last few days, I've come across some really cheering posts and bits and pieces that I'd like to share here.

1. Kinfolk Magazine, Issue #1
I'm so delighted that I came across this beautiful e-zine (via Miss Moss on twitter) - I've heard a lot of negative things about e-zines in the past, but I'm fairly certain that Kinfolk skilfully avoids most of the common pitfalls. I'm not even halfway through it yet, but I'm hooked already. The magazine's ethos is that it is:

'a growing community of artists with a shared interest in small gatherings... [kinsfolk is] consistent with the way we feel entertaining should be: simple uncomplicated and less contrived.'

As a long-term enemy of the contrived, and yet still loving little candle-lit dinner parties as I do, I feel quite sure that this is the perfect e-zine for me. So far there have been articles on the artistry of a London cafe, an attempt to appreciate quiet solitude by a man who can't sit still, and two friends' ritual of catching up over a weekly meal. It's understated and calm, and so nicely designed.

2. Love/Neon: Miss Moss/Fieldguided/Wear Colour
Lately, in the midst of the greyest summer I have ever had the misfortune to be involved in, a little bit of neon wouldn't go amiss. Anabela of Fieldguided started my neon curiosity last week with a reminder of the pop of a neon Swatch watch, while Diana's neon colour comparisons, compared to the brightest of paintings by Yago Hortal, properly brightened things up. I don't expect I'll be revisiting my 1990s wardrobe in any great detail, but, with the help of Mallory of Where the Lovely Things Are's 'Wear Colour' tumblr, perhaps I can begin to appreciate the benefits of a bit of bright.

3. Not So Good Times: Where the Lovely Things Are

I really liked this refreshingly unusual post of images of the beautiful melancholic. Melancholy is not something I see on blogs very often, so, conversely, I found this post quite cheering, in a way.

4. The Morning News: Here is Everything I Learned in New York City
Even if you have never been to New York City and have no plans ever to go, you should read this article. Advice such as why it is important to order what you really want in a sandwich shop, instead of what you think people think you should be ordering, is advice I will certainly be taking, given that I am constantly worrying about what my sandwich-order/sentence/email/dress say about me (answer: nothing of any import). If you're pushed for time, the first half is the best half.

A short while in... Glasgow

2011-07-11T19:30:00.000+01:00

My long while away from the internet over the last two weeks involved a short while (in the form of a stop-off on the way to Islay, the island I grew up on) in Glasgow, a favourite city of mine.

I complain about Bristol, the city I live in, a lot. So much so in fact that Benjamin is always prepared for the donning of what he refers to as my 'tartan-tinted spectacles' whenever we go to Glasgow. I can go on for hours about how much better it is, how much more is going on, and how much happier I feel when I'm there. It may just be that everyone in restaurants, cafes and buses can understand my accent, but there really is something about Glasgow. It is sometimes said to be the friendliest city in Britain, after all.

I find it to be a city you have to learn the ways of before you can really start appreciating it. There are unwritten rules: Always say thank you to your bus driver, always be prepared for a stranger to start a conversation with you (it's like New York in this respect (and only this respect)), and remember that the best places to go are often hidden away but are always full of people satisfied in the camaraderie of having found them too (Byres Road's back alleys are a good place to start). There are places that you learn to avoid of course, as you would with any other city, but the good places are so good that they don't get boring even after you've visited them a thousand times.

Such a place is the Botanic Gardens, plonked peacefully at the end of the busy bottleneck of Byres Road, with its vintage shops and retro cafes. I'd been there a few years back and was fairly sure that it was free to get into. Unusually for any British public attraction this century, it still is.

The Victorian Kibble Palace was originally built in 1873 and is one of the last remaining of these beautiful iron and glass structures. Its two open spaces are filled with tropical plants, statues, delicate ironwork and towering banana plants. In the summer you can escape the rain and listen to it pelting on the glass roof, but the palace is at its best in the winter, when you can buy a takeaway coffee on Byres Road, walk to the palace and step out of the snow and into the tropics – as a girl who used to read books in her mother's greenhouse at the height of summer, I love it.

Mothers wheel their babies in buggies, students pore over books while sipping lattes, couples cuddle on benches, looking to the sky, while others quietly argue - the atmosphere is like a library in the jungle, if that is imaginable at all. If not, I would say you should just go and visit for yourself.

An unwelcome visitor

2011-06-23T20:42:00.000+01:00

Somewhere beautiful does not automatically mean lovely people, it would seem. This at least is my conclusion after a trip to the beautiful village of Bradford on Avon a few days ago.

I've been meaning to pay a visit for months now – it's about an hour away, and fairly well known for being a typically chocolate-box West Country town, and it really is beautiful: stone cottages, thatched roofs, old stone bridges over the river. Despite all of that, the atmosphere was pretty fraught and hostile – especially if you happened to be wandering around with a camera.

Old women pushed past us in the street, muttering audibly, and builders practically chased us off a public side street. There were cars getting in each other's way and clogging up the narrow routes between those high stone walls. To top it all off they were holding a Bradford-on Avon 'Feel Good Festival' in the park, which unfortunately didn't seem to be making much of an impact on the general atmosphere.

All in all, I was an unwelcome visitor, and I was pleased to get home.

Small Town

2011-06-21T17:42:00.001+01:00

When I was little I used to go to the shop along the road to buy the newspapers in the morning. Outside it would be blowing a gale, with the waves threatening the road, or the sea would be flat calm, and the sun would be out. The fishing boats would have long come back in, and be bobbing around on their ropes at the pier. In this unusual place, everyone would just be going about their usual business, and I would just wander home with the papers.

It is the usual ways of a Scottish fishing village that King Creosote and Jon Hopkins have sought to capture in their recent album, Diamond Mine. I'm completely taken by it, and, although I have never blogged about music, I am making an exception for this. The album is melancholic and atmospheric, and I find it endlessly fascinating.

It is based on a way of life that exists mainly in fishing villages in the north and east coasts of Scotland, places that don't generally have an easy time of it, and that won't survive in their current form for much longer. As luck would have it, the Guardian are streaming the whole album here. I would thoroughly recommend that you have a listen if you have a chance.

All of the images above are screengrabs from the video for 'Bubble', which, as it happens was directed by a friend of Ben's, Elliot Dear, who does beautiful and amazing things with very little - watching it is a beautiful way to spend 4 minutes, so I have posted it below.

Poppies

2011-06-12T20:42:00.000+01:00

Most days I commute backwards – I live in the city and drive to the countryside, while all the more conventional workers speed past me in the opposite direction.

Lately I've been driving past these beautiful corn fields, all overrun with poppies, and have been desperate to stop and take photographs. On Saturday, I went back along my commute route and went for a wander through the fields beside the road. We had summer for a day, and I like to take advantage of these things.

I'm delighted with this dress from Mango – I've mentioned before how much I like their recent change of direction and move into a niche I've been desperate for someone to fill for a long time. Their designs are pretty and practical, with clean classic cuts that are cut for the shapely rather than the pre-twenties, as this New York Times article agrees.

My lovely new Thunder in our Hearts tote officially begins its summer service, and announces what I always try to keep in mind when I'm driving along with the rat race on my way to the office.

Text Based

2011-06-07T22:21:00.000+01:00

When I was in my last year of University, I developed a bit of an eBay addiction. Looking back at some of the seriously questionable things I bought during my many hours of dissertation procrastination, it can't have been the buying that I was addicted to – I'm almost certain it was the flow of constant presents through the post that got me hooked.

Things are both different and not at all different now – I've given up fruitless eBay buying, but I still love getting parcels in the mail. Last week, during the beginning of the end of one of the biggest and most stressful book projects I've ever worked on, a flurry of beautiful, text-based presents began to arrive through the letterbox. It was a beautiful and tempting coincidence – now everywhere I look there is something I want to pick up and peruse.

Lula magazine: I bought this for myself in the middle of February when it was cold and dark and miserable, and, like a fairweather friend, now that the sun has come out, so has Lula. I bought a subscription – the best, most reliable place I have found to order it from is here. They ship everywhere.

A beautiful Fieldguided Thunder in our Hearts tote: I will definitely be wearing this all summer – it's even better in person, and the perfect size for hawking cameras, books, magazines etc around. I'm also entirely in awe of the beautifully careful packaging. I think it definitely qualifies as text based too. Thanks so much, Anabela.

Oh Comely magazine: I went all out and bought a subscription to Oh Comely because it's just so nice. It's surprisingly serious for a magazine with such an ethereal name, and the design and photography is perfectly pitched.

Behind the Zines – Self Publishing Culture: I have a real interest in self-publishing in all its forms at the moment, so kind Benjamin bought this book for me as a surprise gift. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I'm looking forward to hopefully learning a thing or two from it.

Now all I need to do is put this project to bed, and curl up on mine and get reading.

Goddesses

2011-05-31T22:41:00.000+01:00

Lately, I can't seem to escape news and features on Mario Testino. King of celebrity (and royal) portraits, he has a retrospective entitled 'Kate Who?' opening in London in July, and the columns are sagging with the news.

His work is fairly uninteresting to me, but it did remind me about a set of 1930s portraits I found tucked away in a corner of the Guardian a while ago, promoting the considerably less column-worthy exhibition of the work of 1930s photographer Madame Yevonde, on in London until July.

Mrs Richard Hart Davis as Ariel & Lady Anne Rhys as Flora

Mrs Anthony Eden as Clio & Lady Bridgett Poulett as Arethusa

Mrs Brian Guinness as Venus & Margaret, Duchess of Argyll as Helen of Troy

All photographs taken from the Guardian

This exhibition focuses on a series of 1935 photographs in which 1930s society women (the majority known predominantly by their husbands' names) portray Classical heroines in these experimental colour portraits. Here we have Clio, the muse of history, portrayed by Beatrice Beckett, the wife of the future prime minister Anthony Eden, and Margaret, Duchess of Argyll as Helen of Troy (ironically she is best known for her scandalous divorce from her Duke in 1963 after an affair).

The images are in many ways far more interesting than the results of Mario Testino's famous ability to get his subjects to strip off – Madame Yevonde adds layers, and through the veneer of these otherworldly characters, highlights the contrasts between the independent mythical goddesses of old and the 'goddesses' of the early twentieth century.

Book Guilt

2011-05-16T21:51:00.001+01:00

Photograph by marcinéma via Book Lovers Never Go to Bed Alone

Foyles bookshop came to Bristol, and I was so excited that I wanted to queue outside for the opening. At work instead on opening day, I waited until the weekend, dragging Ben down into town with me for my intended statement of support for the miserable book trade. I knew what I wanted to buy, and I was going to buy it, at cover price, from a brand new book shop. I work in publishing and I was going to set an example.

I got there. It was beautifully laid out, but not very busy. I browsed and flicked pages and pointed things out, and settled on the books I wanted. Wandering around the shop with them in my hand, I realised gradually that I couldn't go through with it.

By apozapox

By Azrasta

I think I'm ruined for bookshops. Spoiled by Amazon, too used to glorious second-hand bookshops and spoiled by internet undercutting. Even my guilt didn't stop me from buying both of my chosen titles (for the price I would have paid for one in the bookshop), from the Amazon machine. I was reminded of my guilt by this New York Times visual of beautiful cover designs that were discarded along the publishing way – it's a perfect illustration of just how much time and energy goes into every book, and puts my miserly attitude to shame.

One day, I tell myself, when I have the means to do it, I'll go back into one of those new bookshops and I'll put all this right – the problem is, by then there might not be any of them left.

Country Garden

2011-05-09T19:04:00.000+01:00

Driving through the countryside, you peer through the green privacy hedges and elbow your boyfriend in the ribs and say 'hey, look at that one', pointing at another beautiful country mansion, set back from the road, covered with large windows and ivy and architectural curiosities. Then you see a village cricket bowler run towards his batsman, watch the ball hit for six and call the score for the benefit of everyone else in the car, interested or otherwise.

Sometimes, if you are lucky, these hidden houses are open to visitors, and you can drive up and explore their gardens all you like. It's an addiction surprisingly simple to cultivate on a hot spring day with little else to do.

This garden wander was the weekend of the wedding – my royal blue velvet blazer adds a touch of unintended regency I think. It was an outfit I wore all around London too when I went to visit this past weekend. In true royal fashion, it's an outfit that likes to be leisurely both in the city and in the countryside.

Details

2011-04-25T18:01:00.000+01:00

As I sat on the floor scrubbing the skirting boards, about an hour or so after Ben had looked at me pityingly to say that on his list of things to clean, the skirting boards were quite far down, I realised that I'm definitely quite obsessed by the little details.

I've mentioned my appreciation of clean lines and subtle detailing before, but I hadn't realised the extent to which it ran. Lately, I've been chasing these geometrics and little details around with my camera, and these pictures are the result. I took them in Ben's parents' house a weekend or so ago (an early seventeenth-century house is full of fine details – beams, uneven walls, tiny doors – it has them all).

Aside from my recent detail fanaticism, a few other things I have been enjoying this past week are this man's skill at photographing people (found via his photographs of a riot that happened nearby this weekend) and this website's free stream of the new Fleet Foxes album, which I find a little too much at times, but perfect at others.

Linen

2011-04-18T19:10:00.000+01:00

'I don't really mind where we go, I just like old things.' I said, last Sunday, on the warmest day of the year. We went to Hampton Court Castle, a 15th-century castle within its own gardens – a vista around every corner.

This garden, with its high red brick walls was almost everything a Frances Hodgson Burnett girl might wish for – walls too high to see over and wrought-iron gates – all that was missing was the secrets and the mystery, and a bit of overgrowth. The colossal entrance fee did little to help the mystique along, but old couples sat grumpily drawing on benches, and around every hedge was a different conversation to eavesdrop on.

I came across this dress entirely by surprise in a charity shop a week or so ago. It has been so long since I found anything worthwhile that I'd almost given up trying. It's French linen, and has a very pretty line to it. The wide pleats are perfect.

The label tells me that it comes from Cannes, which conjures film festivals and swishing along promenades and harbours with a little dog and stiletto shoes. As I possess neither, I stick to my gentleman's flats and add a headscarf, and pretend anyway.

National Velvet

2011-04-10T21:44:00.000+01:00

It was the Grand National this weekend - the famous annual British steeplechase. This year, I was completely shocked by it.

Fallen horses and cowering jockeys, ringing of tills and careless cash made the whole thing seem a futile way, motivated entirely by money, to entertain a country for twenty minutes.

It reminded me, however, of National Velvet, the book by Enid Bagnold, and the film starring the late Elizabeth Taylor, that I loved as a little girl. Based around the Grand National of the 1920s, when strictly only men rode in the race, a girl called Velvet Brown, inspired by her mother swimming the English Channel some years before, decides to ride a horse that she won in a raffle in the Grand National, and wins.

All images are screengrabs from 'National Velvet' (1944)

She is found out, of course, and disqualified, but becomes a reluctant national heroine. It's really a story of achievements against the odds, and women disregarding their imposed limits, and one that I loved as a horse-crazy little girl.

Year

2011-04-04T20:50:00.000+01:00

Last week marked the year anniversary of the beginnings of this blog. I, after a year of trying to be a freelancer and occupying my sudden unusually large amounts of free time with blogging, was up to my elbows in work, and didn't notice. Or rather, I did notice, I was just too busy to do anything to celebrate it.

When I started writing this blog, I had just quit two jobs in two months. The former I had done for nearly three years, the latter, three weeks. I cried both times I gave notice - I'm not awfully good at quitting..

The day after I quit my second job, I spent a whole day reading blogs, being amazed at the ingenuity of them, and poring through their archives like a person obsessed, (Fieldguided, Lulu Letty & Liebemarlene in particular, I recall). I felt terribly guilty about not having achieved anything that day, and decided that the only way to legitimately spend my time reading blogs was to write one myself. Then I'd feel like I was achieving something.

I kind of think, after a year of blog post induced galavants around the countryside, obsessive photograph taking, and time spent finding ever more inspiring blogs to pore through, that I have.

Little World

2011-03-22T18:49:00.000Z

My world has been decidedly little this past month, as I work to my April deadline, although it has been expanded briefly by watching programmes about Space, such as the BBC's 'Wonders of the Universe', of which the above is a screen grab. I don't know what the iPlayer rules are if you are elsewhere, but if you can catch it, it is completely fascinating.

I've never been much into the Christopher Kane school of printing the Universe onto dresses, but looking at these pictures made me think a little more favourably about pattern. I'm usually a girl of clean and simple lines, but these sweet 1950s dresses have made me think again. Pair pattern with clean colours and it almost cancels out the busy.

1. Dress: River Island 2. Shoes: Vena Cava x Tenoversix 3. Hat: Asos 4. Polish: Topshop

1 Dress: River Island 2. Vintage French Leather Bag: BoMode on Etsy 3. Shoes: Repetto 4. Lipstick: Mac

Pastel

2011-03-11T20:11:00.000Z

The credits of 'Never Let Me Go', the recent film adaptation of Kazuro Ishiguro's novel, were incongruously light and pretty, for a film that in essence was exactly the opposite. Pastel colours with sweet white text, sandwiching a very good, but fairly mournful film.

It's spring (or almost at least) and my long-awaited spring magazine editions are all arriving in the post and summer shoes are becoming ever more tempting although still impractical. (I have bought some already, to my shame).

The Gentlewoman arrived through the letterbox this week - it's a magazine fascinating to the touch: the paper textures differ all the way through, with cheaper paper weight alongside the most expensive glossy within the most unusual, almost plasticky covers. Oh Comely promises some beautiful illustrations and very pretty editorials alongside some sharp features, which are also incongruous cased within such pretty pastel colours.

Writers of Letters

2011-03-03T12:59:00.000Z

From Ciaffi, on Etsy

I haven't received a letter in years. I once sent a letter to Bunty, the Enid Blyton-appropriate magazine for little girls who enjoy tales of boarding school girls thwarting crimes. I wrote to its 'Pen-Pal' page.

Unexpectedly, my letter was published, and I had a flurry of paper in reply from all sorts of places that to me seemed to be beyond exotic. I was particularly delighted to receive one on green paper (Green paper! How foreign!) from a Bunty girl in Singapore and I had a pen-pal for a few months after that, I think, until things petered out and we both lost interest in the endeavour.

Pencils, from O-Check, here.

Seashells note set, from The Paper Apartment

I wonder if little girls still write letters to penpals, or if the very concept is anathema to these new, Internet days when any unknown correspondent is a threat. Benjamin works almost exclusively by email, and can't remember how to lay out a letter. Working in the old-fashioned world of publishing, I send quite a few, but never any away from the office.

In an email, the date is always unforgivingly embedded and it matters not at all where you were when you sent it – you can pick up a reply wherever you are. I haven't received, or sent, a personal letter in years – but I do remember how exciting it is to get one. It made me wonder if simple things, like having your address or general location right-aligned at the top, with the date below, and even the fun of curly flowing cursive, will soon be forgotten.

If anything can encourage me to send a letter, or encourage anyone else whose knowledge of letter and card writing is slowly evaporating, it is having beautiful materials with which to do so.

I imagine letter writing, like blog writing, can have the added benefit of improving writing style. I recently read a fascinating article on the use of cadence in writing, the knowledge of which could do the same, I guess. It is here.

Spring Searching

2011-02-25T15:21:00.000Z

My work schedule is so peculiar these days that I have to squash my weekend into a Thursday. I do this quite cheerfully: the streets are quiet, the cafes are empty and I can just wander around while everyone else is hard at work. The joke's on me of course when I'm working all day on Saturday and Sunday.

Yesterday Benjamin and I went on a walk, officially to buy some salt, but ended up wandering the grounds of the church turned concert venue, St George's, and finding, to our surprise, the early shoots of spring.

There are a few churches in Bristol which have been taken over by enterprises more profitable than they – lately I've spotted a church now in a hut adjacent to its former premises (now a gymnastics studio), and another turned into a boxing centre. Sport is the new religion, it would seem.

St George's is the nicest of them all - I saw Owen Pallett play here last year, which was quite a magical experience. Inside, the ceilings are high and the acoustics are something special.

So, while spring springs out of miserable February, I'll be working hard on a very large book. When I'm finished, perhaps it will be springtime proper, and time for something different.

Some things

2011-02-18T11:10:00.001Z

I like the idea of a rolling wardrobe, where everything is of such good quality that you can sell on once you tire of it, and buy something of similar quality with the proceeds. While I am far from that ideal, I am selling three of my best vintage dresses on eBay at the moment, (ending Sunday) and thought you might like to see, just in case you are interested in such things. All three are genuine 1960s, and were bought at an antiques auction last summer.

So, to make way (hopefully) for things of a similar quality that can also be sold on in time, here they are:

1960s Teal Green Beaded Dress

1960s Silver Beaded Cocktail Dress

Secret Admirer

2011-02-14T20:26:00.000Z

At a loss to understand Valentines, and as a secret admirer of many things, year round, I feel like posting a selection. I can make no attempts to create meaning around this, the strangest of days – I can only post some simple things that I've admired today.

An unexpected cake

The first daffodils

Very delicious gin from Islay/A blackbird ready for a pie

For real old fashioned romance, I suggest Hila's perfectly pitched Valentine's post, complete with sea view, here.

Indian Winter

2011-02-07T21:12:00.000Z

I've always said that living in a city that I don't love, I can survive quite cheerfully as long as I can hide in my flat every so often – it's just the world as I want it to be, and I can pretend that what's outside the windows is, too.

In early February, that mean old world is even more grey and damp, and the wind whistles through my windows, moving the curtains in a ghostly fashion. So this, in a roundabout way, is why I'm staying indoors, rather than roaming the countryside, although I can't wait until the months when the prospect of that becomes enticing again.

This dress, with its Indian inspired fabric, is handmade 1960s I think. It was my first foray into vintage, actually, years ago, and was probably more expensive than anything I would buy now. I love it, but somehow I've never really worn it anywhere. Perhaps I haven't quite been brave enough, but I think I am now. It fits perfectly (something I only ever really get from vintage) and I like the way it brightens up the greyness outside.

In my current hermit mode, I've been reading To Kill a Mockingbird which I've somehow never read before, and the latest issue of Oh Comely magazine, which just seems to be getting better and better with each issue. I've been enjoying branching out with less established magazines lately, and am so pleased I have - they reward you in a way that Vogue and the other big players never could.

On that note, I must direct anyone who is interested in such things to Ellen Burney of Vagabondiana's beautiful riposte to the traditional fashion press – her words are brilliant, and her point equally so.

Dress: Vintage handmade 1960s
Wool Tights: H&M
Shoes: Topshop

Music Hall

2011-02-05T10:00:00.000Z

My house is full of instruments that we don't play for fear of the neighbours, so they sit around the place instead, like oversized ornaments not sure what to do with themselves.

The accordion really belongs to my mother, who whimsically bought it when she was about the same age as I am now. She took lessons and learnt Scottish accordion, but I think I'd like to learn how to play it like they do in France, the way Yann Tiersen plays it. It's easy to play around and compose a sea shanty on it though, but it's impossible to remember it the next day.

I bought the mandolin in a very similar whimsical moment, although it was more like madness – the kind of moment when you don't know what to buy for your boyfriend's birthday when you've only been going out for a little while and you want to do something memorable. It was memorable, I suppose, but neither of us have the first idea of what to do with it. I bought a round-backed one because I had read about round-backed mandolins in 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' and was taken by the romance of it all.

Tonight I'm going to watch my friend play in a concert of gypsy baroque music. She's borrowing my mother's 1970s hippy circle skirt to wear – it fits right into the slightly Russian gypsy atmosphere in a way that it doesn't fit into my everyday life. I kind of love the pulled threads.

Watching it all will make me want to learn to play one of my instruments again I'm sure, but I'm always worried that learning properly might take the fun out of it. Perhaps I'm just happy to experiment forever and just appreciating the happy surprises that you get when something works.

Sassenachs

2011-01-27T18:26:00.000Z

When I was at school, and reached the dizzy age of seventeen, I had the strange honour of being invited to the school Burns Night (the traditional celebration of the Scottish poet, not a precursor to a night in hospital) on the night of 25 January. It was like a school disco, only there was no DJ, no dancing, just haggis. It was probably the only thing simple enough for the school canteen to cook and not ruin.

It would begin with someone who knew how to play the bagpipes piping the haggis into the room in noisy procession. When it arrived at the table, our headmaster, with all the drama he could muster, would summon his sgien dubh (a little knife, kept in one's sock), read the 'Address to a Haggis' and slice it open. My sister knows the whole address by heart, I don't really know it at all.

Despite all that tradition, it was always a fairly clinical affair, held in the echoey white school canteen. We sat at long formica tables – the kind with the plastic stools pre-attached.

(Last photo via macten on Flickr, whose photos are beautiful, actually)

Nowadays, shacked up with my very own sassenach (a Scottish term for those English folk) he and I forgo the dramatics and focus on the food and the whisky. On Burns Night in our little flat, we have haggis, 'neeps (turnip) and tatties (potatoes), sometimes we have cranachan for pudding (a creamy raspberry concoction) and afterwards we wince our way through the first few sips of whisky.

It's much quieter, much less dramatic, but I'm pleased all the same that we remember to do it. It's kind of therapeutic to return to your roots when you live life far removed from them, I find.

Country Living

2011-01-25T16:22:00.000Z

When Ben's parents go on holiday, their house more often than not becomes a little country retreat for him and me. We have roaring fires, bake cakes, make soup, watch films and read books and generally pretend that we're on holiday too, which is what we did this weekend. It's a perfect way to disappear from your own life and gear up for what you have to do when you return to it.

The house is a perfect English seventeenth-century museum piece, with hidden rooms in unexpected places, dark beams, tiny doorways to duck under and mysterious windows. It's not a house for the tall (me) but it is very characterful. When we were taking these photographs, an unwelcome chicken appeared in the garden to root up the lawn, which prompted a strategic chicken chase to coerce it back to its own.

Recently it has been getting slightly warmer, and, as I mentioned in my last post, I've been overly optimistic and started spring clothes hunting already. I justify it by reasoning that I can never find what I want when I'm actually looking, so if I see something I want when I'm not looking, I really ought to buy it. Ridiculous, but there we are.

The dress is a great cut – a wide waistband and just the right amount of flare. The bag is one I have on long term loan from Ben's mother – his dad bought it for her in Florence, and she doesn't use it, so I've been making the most of it. The soup was a very delicious Ben creation.

Tonight we are back in the city, armed with a haggis and a bottle of whisky to celebrate Burn's Night, just as any self-respecting Scottish girl ought to be. I actually really like haggis, so I'm quite looking forward to it.

Dress: Topshop
Bag: Borrowed

Clean Lines

2011-01-20T19:30:00.000Z

I hesitate to post something springy here, but I can't help it in this case (also I have shamefully bought two summer dresses this winter already...). I've been thinking lately that with the apparent revival of the 1970s trend clean lines are going to find themselves the underdog in a bit of a scrap this spring and summer, which makes me a bit sad.

Above all things, clean lines in clothes are what excite me – they don't clutter, they keep your shape simple (which is useful if you happen to have hips, as I do). With the 1970s, reams of swirly, floaty fabric engulf and obscure, and are much less helpful than their counterparts from decades past. In summer floaty is cooler, temperature wise, but I'd much rather be a starchy 1930s girl than a 1970s hippy.

So, I was very pleased to have come across Colenimo's late-1920s inspired SS11 collection this morning on Liebemarlene. Rhiannon posted the ethereal lookbook images, which are beautiful and here, but, as I'm addicted to the cut of clothes, I'm always more interested in seeing them clear and close up. This collection is influenced by the 1920s (which I think/hope will be a bit of a sneaky high street thing this summer) but look almost under-contol 1970s – the perfect compromise, I say.

All images from Colenimo Lookbook

I particularly like the floaty capelets and capped sleeves – 1970s flare in a useful place – mixed with the simple, clean fabrics with minimal pattern. The summer straw hat would look beautiful with the 'side chignon' hairstyle that has been doing the rounds lately too.

Another reason that I like it is that, if I ever tidy up my sewing corner and get practicing, a lot of these things are quite makeable, especially those starchy linen culottes. It's always this time of year that I get motivated to sew – I should probably make the most of the compulsion.

Vivian Maier

2011-01-15T15:17:00.000Z

On Vivian Maier's walks through the city she watches a 1950s girl in a prom dress emerge from the dark into the soft light of a street lamp. She appreciates the humour in two little girls sharing secrets against a wall and sometimes she stops to take a self-conscious self-portrait of her reflection in a shop window.

We know what went on on these walks through Chicago because she recorded all of it with her Rolleiflex camera. Vivian Maier is the recently discovered Chicago street photographer of the 1950s and 1960s and took all these pictures, which were then swiftly forgotten and hidden in boxes of undeveloped films for forty years. They were discovered via a chance purchase at an auction, and now, as each set is developed, seem to enchant everyone who sees them.

Screen grabs from Chicago Tonight

What each person is thinking about is intriguing in every shot, and imagined circumstances just present themselves. My favourites are the smartly dressed man balancing on his chair and the man with the hat asleep in his car on a summer's day. That Vivian worked as a nanny all her life, and died essentially penniless makes the story behind every click of the shutter all the stronger.

Although she wasn't a street 'style' photographer, Vivian puts specialised photographers like The Sartorialist (he of the visual life) to shame with her ability to capture an eye-catching outfit alongside an intriguing story or curious atmosphere in every shot.

I wonder about this century, in which we document everything, interesting or not. While most may not have the level of skill that Vivian Maier had, and kept hidden all her life, everything we do is archived online or on hard drives, and I wonder if we early twenty-first century people will ever hold an air of mystery for future generations. Can you imagine, in fifty years time, getting excited at the prospect of watching a drama series set in a 2011 advertising agency in London?

These are all screen grabs from a video that you should watch if you want to hear more of the story. It can be found here. In the words of one YouTube commenter: 'Wow, breathtaking. If she had had a Tumblr, her stuff would really have gotten around.'

Duffle

2011-01-11T18:06:00.000Z

I've never been a duffle coat girl. 'Too much Paddington Bear, not enough shape' says my inner monologue. Sometimes though (often, actually), my inner monologue needs to be a bit more open minded, and this, to a certain extent, is one of those occasions.

Despite all of that, this is not my duffle coat, borne of a sudden change of heart after years of duffle-aversion, but my mother's, from NW3 at Hobbs (the young trendy Hobbs collection – she's neither old nor serious enough for the Hobbs part yet, she says – I agree).

The coat and I are on the rocks just outside my mother's house on the Isle of Islay. I think every child who has ever grown up in the village grew up mostly clambering and scrambling over them. My sister and I used to decorate carefully-chosen rocks with things we found on the shore, and play house; sending letters to each other via slates and chalk. When it was stormy, we'd go down and marvel at the high tide. On calm days I'd sit and watch the ripples quietly ripple in. I'm quite attached to these rocks, as it happens.

The coat's best feature, in my opinion, is the part that makes it less a typical duffle coat and more of a coat that comes in at the waist (my preference) – the lovely cut at the back. The lining is also very pretty, and the coat itself is probably the cosiest one I've ever worn. All in, I think I like it, although probably not enough to buy one for myself.

I've topped off my largely borrowed outfit with my sister's Christmas present – the vintage looking leather laptop bag, which I'm a big fan of. It's a little bit Mulberry-esque, I suppose. The gloves belong to me (a Cath Kidston Christmas present), as do the riding boots, which I got from Islay's only charity shop.

Every time I go back to Islay, I wonder if I could live there – life always seems so much simpler. Lots of peat fires, long walks on beaches and cosy whisky. I'd like to some day I think, but not soon, and not forever – it's a hard place to live in the winter when the newspapers don't arrive and the mail is cut off because of a fierce storm. On the other hand, fierce storms and stormy seas are kind of exhilarating, and who needs newspapers really?

Duffle coat: NW3 at Hobbs
Jeans: Topshop
Boots: Charity shopped
Gloves: Cath Kidston
Bag: Atwood

Sally Scott

2011-01-06T18:11:00.000Z

This evening, snow is forecast in my corner of England, which always leaves me wondering once again whether it is at all possible to wear something blizzard appropriate and be happy with it. I suspect not, although this New York Times video gallery of New Yorkers and tourists in the snow over Christmas would suggest that a fur coat is the way forward. As fur coats aren't really my thing, here I turn to the Sally Scott winter lookbook.

All images from Sally Scott

My suspicion is that I'm late to this – a suspicion confirmed now that I realise that it is from last year's winter collection. This is another collection of photographs that evokes an atmosphere and a lifestyle rather than making a lot of the clothes themselves, which I am in two minds about – I like the atmosphere, but I would prefer to see more of the clothes.

As far as I can make out, Sally Scott is from Japan, making it very difficult to buy anywhere else, but it isn't so very original – similar pieces shouldn't be too difficult to find. This colour palette is something I'm always drawn to – muted mustards and chambray blues with the odd strong colour to bring out the others. It's winter clothes viewed through a springtime lens.

More than anything though, in a very British way, it is quite possible that as the temperature slowly descends outside my door, my favourite part of this lookbook is actually the stylish presence of tea.

A Happy New Year

2011-01-01T20:04:00.000Z

I've had a bit of an internet holiday this last week – I've swapped it for snowy driving to Wales for Christmas and more snowy driving to Scotland for Hogmanay. The west coast of Scotland is positively springlike compared to English temperatures, and I'm not looking forward to returning to my chilly flat on Monday.

In Bristol, the Christmas Steps are Christmassy all year round, but I always find them especially pleasing in December. I ended up going up and down them far more than I expected before Christmas due to some emergency present buying. In the end, Benjamin and I decided instead to bake chocolate and hazelnut biscotti and put them in a little bag with a ribbon around the top as little gifts for the people we forgot to buy for. They are super easy to bake and make for much-appreciated presents – the recipe we used is here, if you're interested.

My Scottish New Year has been catching up with my feral turned 2011 house cat, Muesli, falling off my mother's new horse, drinking gin made in the distillery across the road and taking long New Year's Day walks along the beach with Ben, my little sister, and Jock, the Westie who loves to run in the sand. He steals the show some. Now for some apple tarte tatin, and a viewing of a home video of my mother and grandparents in the 1960s to round off a perfect New Year's Day.

Wishing you all the best for the New Year! I'm looking forward to seeing what it has in store.

Postcards from Japan

2010-12-18T12:30:00.000Z

Apparently, if you visit Japan, it's very easy to get very caught up in the wild atmosphere of buying things – which I suppose is what we all do here in December – the Japanese just keep that intensity up over the whole year, which sounds quite stressful.

So say our friends who came back from Japan a few weeks ago, anyway. Benjamin and I looked after their wild cat who chases her own tail while they were away, and they brought these things back for us. Faced with shops full of such sweet things, I'm not sure I could control myself at all in Japan.

The little puss paperweight at the top is so characterful. I could take photographs of him all day. The book is amazing – I'm easily seduced by Japanese book bindings. It's almost better that I can't understand the captions.

White

2010-12-14T18:08:00.000Z

Despite a birthday at the beginning and Christmas at the end, and a real, serious frugality the rest of the year, in December, I buy things. Luckily, so does everyone else, so my wild coveting is disguised as Christmas spirit. Even I'm fooled by it.

Here are a couple of things that have been collecting in my little covetables folder all year – things I could never really justify buying for myself, but would really enjoy buying as gifts! People give to others what they like to receive themselves, after all.

1. Penguin Classic Hardbacks 2. Saint James Breton Top

These redesigned hardbacks are so unusual, and I like the way publishing is turning to fancy bindings and design to keep readers buying the classics. A set of Fitzgeralds and Hemingways would be perfect reading to prepare for a year full of 1920s influences. My current copies are so scrawled on and full of post-its that I think it might be time to buy a copy I can actually read without cringing at my terrible schoolgirl literary criticism.

1. Anthropologie dress 2. Victorian candle holder 3. Caribou Snow boots

I'm quite pleased with how incongruous clumpy snow boots are in this selection - but could there be anything more useful? Last winter I slid around on pavements, fell over six times on my way to the dentist, and swore I'd save up for these. I forgot all about it in the summer though, of course. The Victorian candle holder reminds me of dark Christmas power cuts when I was little, and of wispy Victorian gentlemen asleep in their nightcaps.

1. New Year's Shine & Sparkle Dress 2. Bialetti Espresso Pot

This is such a pretty dress if you have a New Year party to go to, in a great shape and at such a good price. I'll be secretly devastated if somebody buys it before me. I could probably console myself with the prospect of making affogatos with the espresso from an espresso pot though.

Clevedon

2010-12-08T11:00:00.000Z

An old English Victorian seaside town out of season, Clevedon in December is far more beautiful than it is in July. No tourists with ice cream cones buying expensive lunches in seafront locations and fighting over the outside seats – in December the sea is calm, the anglers are watchful and the sea mist swirls around and makes an atmosphere out of it all.

The pier is Clevedon's jewel. John Betjeman called it 'the most beautiful pier in England' and it must be – its long spindly legs create such delicate arches. The wet beams are recycled railway sleepers, paid for by tiny brass plaques inset into the wood and engraved with the names of the people who bought them. The glorious pavilion at the end is quiet now, but becomes a seaside cafe in the summer. I realised when I was there, that this is the pier that is used in the publicity posters for 'Never Let Me Go', the new Keira Knightley film.

When Ben and I strolled along it, the pier was completely deserted bar the quiet anglers with their bowed heads. It was pouring with rain and the mist was rolling in. I felt like my 1940s coat deserved an attempt at 1940s hair, which I quite like I think – It's nice to have a fringe break now and again. The coat I bought in a charity shop – it's heavy and the cut is perfect for me – it feels very grand.

Coat: Vintage 1940s
Leather gloves: Vintage
Tights: H&M
Shoes: Topshop

Broguing

2010-12-01T19:21:00.000Z

My grandfather always used to wear brown brogues, I'm told. Brown ones. I've had a bit of a thing for them ever since finding that out. Brown brogues, a tweed suit and dark rimmed glasses. He was someone I never met, but I think following in his shoe choice footsteps is a nice option. If Benjamin does the same, then so much the better.

I know mine aren't brogues, more tasseled loafers (loafers has such a horribly sleazy business connotation, doesn't it? – what kind of a man wears tasseled shoes?), but they're as far as I am willing to go into what Hadley Freeman calls the age when 'it became acceptable to wear your dad's shoes'. They're a happy medium.

Details are precious in menswear – you can have a interestingly cut cuff, or a vintage tie clip, or roll your jeans, but there are far fewer particulars. Brogues are full of subtle details.

In America, they call them wingtips, after the wing shape leather on the toe. They appeared first in Scotland – the holes were to drain the water accumulated by tramping through long wet grass. The broguing (the little holes punched into the leather) come minimalist (the austerity wingtip), or over the top (the British long wing). I think Ben's might be British long wing. My favourite bits are the long thin laces – perfect for sophisticated bows.

With all this talk of the importance of 'Heritage' recently, it seems some kind of crossed line to wear a brogue inspired girl's shoe, especially as I'm quite late to the loafer party and bought mine at the decidedly anti-heritage Topshop. I'm quite pleased with them, though, regardless.

My loafers: Topshop
Ben's brogues: (the infinitelty more respectable) Osborne Gentleman's Attire

Going Gatsby

2010-11-23T19:16:00.000Z

Stills from 'The Great Gatsby' (1974)

Hemingway's Garden of Eden (from the Paris Review)

In a recession, we look to the past. Nostalgia keeps us going. In fashion, nostalgia keeps a whole industry going, and not only in a recession. This year, the early 1960s were the years to look to for escape – to a simpler time when everyone dressed well and life was simpler. It was to be the bringer of a 'new womanly' style – a move away from boom-induced frivolity, and a nod to being grown up, and sexily sensible.

Fashion can't stay so sensible for long – it seems to be gradually embracing this perfect opportunity to go Gatsby.

1. Dress: Alice + Olivia 2. Shoes: Repetto 3. Headband: Topshop

Carey Mulligan will be making her leap from An Education's British 1960s to the bright young world of the American 1920s as Daisy Buchanan in Baz Luhrmann's take on The Great Gatsby next year. Later this year, Mena Suvari plays Catherine, an American newlywed traveling Europe with her husband in an adaptation of Hemingway's unfinished novel Garden of Eden, set in the twenties, one war just finished, another just brewing.

The 1920s have much in common with the 1960s. Both were, at least in America, inter-war years, both were shocked by the relative emancipation of their women and both were boom decades building towards an inevitable crash and recession. In 2010, in the middle of our own recession, we ignore the end of the story and pick out the glamour, the freedom and the excitement of those years, and wear styles which evoke that atmosphere for us.

1. Lace top: Lover 2. Fedora: French Connection 3. Russian Red Lipstick: Mac

1. White Dress: French Connection 2. Dropwaist Blue Dress: ASOS

'With the influence of her dress her personality had also undergone a change' says Nick Carraway of Daisy Buchanan, and, if clothes really can create optimism, the 1920s are already quietly appearing just for that purpose, in innocent white fabrics, dropped waists and jaunty hats.

Craft Fair

2010-11-16T21:01:00.000Z

Among the fiddly porcelain, shelves of teapots, and precariously balanced jewelery there was not a great deal of room for a video camera and a tripod, but last weekend Benjamin and I ploughed in regardless. We were very much in the way.

Benjamin was filming one of his interviewees for a project at Hereford Craft Fair. The interviewee was a potter named Jewels, who makes tiny sea-inspired pottery sets after just doing an evening class at the local college. Late learning is in the family – her 75-year-old mother is studying for a PhD in older people's attitudes to death. She sounds fascinating – I'd love to meet her.

As I hate being in the way above all things, I drifted around with the crowd, taking photographs and chatting to some of the stall holders. It was surprisingly busy. It's amazing and brilliant that the most popular designs were the simplest and the most old fashioned, and that people were still snapping them up despite the modern age of austerity, and the availability of cheap china from the east, and Ikea.

I got talking to a potter who looked more like a 1960s bank manager than an artist. He had in fact spent the 1960s studying pottery, which he left for large scale manufacturing. He only came back to potting a few years ago, and had just sold an entire £1,500 dinner set on commission: 'The woman who bought it didn't even blink at the price', he told me.

This weekend, in the middle of another fruitless Bristol shopping trip, I cheered myself up with this fantastically long wool scarf from Zara. I love how thick the wool is, and how many times I can wrap it around. If you add a topknot (my hair's default setting at the moment) it is a really satisfying one too.

Scarf: Zara
Cardigan: H&M
Skirt: Zara
Boots & Bag: Vintage

Green Doors

2010-11-09T18:28:00.001Z

I have a thing about disused buildings, and on our way to the (fascinating) Chinese supermarket at the weekend, Ben and I discovered this one. All peeling paint and weather-worn iron, this door looks beautiful just as it is – I hope no one ever repaints it. The layers of paint show off its primary-coloured history: from blue to red to green, and now all three – which is really very avant garde for an industrial door.

There is a tiny little window through which you can see a couple of old office chairs up against tables as if they had been sat on not so very long ago, their chair legs deep in dust which suggests that they haven't. It's very intriguing – I'd love to sneak in.

I know I've paraded my poor cape here before, but given how well the colour of the hood goes with the colour of the door, I couldn't help it. Winter is just about to properly set in here, so it's getting a little too cold for exposed arms, although toasty Toast gloves do help a little bit.

I often think I should hem the cape a little and make it shorter, but I'm always loath to alter such well made vintage pieces. Perhaps I'll do it for next autumn.

Our Chinese supermarket visit was more interesting than usual – free samples of Chinese dumplings with pork and Chinese leaf, more soy sauce and noodle varieties than I have ever seen, and some beautiful (cheap) china including a blue and white sake set, which, of course, I bought.

Cape: Vintage (D.H Evans, Oxford St., London)
Dress: American Apparel
Boots: Vintage
Gloves: Toast

Le Petit Prince

2010-10-26T21:43:00.000+01:00

'On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.'

It is only with one's heart that one can see clearly. What is essential is invisible to the eyes.

I spotted Jean-Charles de Castelbajac's SS11 collection on The Cherry Blossom Girl, and was at first excited by it, and then, a little dismayed. Should fashion be allowed to so blatantly hijack such a beloved piece of literature?

The collection obviously draws on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's illustrations for his book, Le Petit Prince. Essentially a children's book, Le Petit Prince, nearly 70 years after it was first published, remains hugely popular, especially in France – the tale of an intergalactic boy prince, discovered by an airman in the desert.

I came across it at school, when an amazing French teacher decided it would be a good addition to our lessons. I loved deciphering the French, and then, deciphering the insights contained within the English.

The book has many layers. The collection has many too, although these more physical than metaphorical. Aptly enough, given fashion's typical temporality, this collection takes it on its most superficial level – a simple tale of a lost pilot who finds a travelling little boy from a foreign planet in the desert. In an interview with Dazed Digital, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac explained: '... it was my purpose to approach Africa through the desert. Petit Prince was my ambassador to go on the planet on the desert. I went to the desert and then to the jungle.'

In terms of the narrative of the collection, he has certainly followed this path. Stars and Space, and prints of Saint-Exupéry's illustrations give way to safari-style dresses with wild top hats the same shape as the narrator's drawing of an elephant swallowed by a boa constrictor, and mistaken by narrow-minded grown-ups for a hat.

Images from Le Petit Prince, The Cherry Blossom Girl, New York Magazine

But it seems curious that a book essentially about love and loneliness, the importance of small things in the vastness of the universe, and even the perils of judging people on their aesthetics should ever be allied with an industry selling aesthetics.

But then, Le Petit Prince can also be read as a comment on the narrow-mindedness of grown-ups who refuse to see past what they see with their eyes – and perhaps there is nothing more contradictory to that than questioning this brief appearance of Le Petit Prince in fashion.

'But he would always answer, “That’s a hat.” Then I wouldn’t talk about boa constrictors or jungles or stars. I would put myself on his level and talk about bridge and golf and politics and neckties. And my grown-up was glad to know such a reasonable person.'

Sofia Coppola

2010-10-12T21:05:00.000+01:00

I can't resist style sections of newspapers. In particular, I just can't help myself around Suzy Menkes' slightly old-fashioned but always straight talking takes on things, and I always go to her first, for balance. Menkes' profile of Sofia Coppola this month is published to promote her collaboration with Louis Vuitton – a selection of prohibitively expensive bags and shoes (some costing over $4,000), made to her own specifications. The accompanying images, taken from the collection, caught my eye.

All images from TFS

I very much admire the simplicity of her personal style, those long trousers and her ability to wield a clutch in particular. In the article though, it's not the bags that are intriguing (either way, they're not: they're ridiculously expensive, and you can find very similar at Topshop) it's the personality, the personal style, and the one phrase that sums up one individual's approach to fashion:

"Paris women have certain style - they are not trying to be little girls," she says. "In general, people are more chic and put together in Paris... I like the idea of growing up and being a woman - the end of childhood but keeping part of your nature."

She is not alone in thinking this: the cover of the Guardian Saturday magazine a few weeks ago featured a model in a flared Prada shift dress with the line: 'Step aside, girls, fashion for women has arrived'. I really would love to believe that it has.

A Tourist at Home

2010-10-06T18:17:00.000+01:00

Sometimes it's fun to be a tourist in your own city. I'm the kind of tourist who tries to blend in with whatever place I'm visiting in order to see the real place, not the manufactured directed version that you are fed as a slavish tourist. The hardest part about trying to fit in in a place that you have never been before is not getting lost, so being a tourist in the city that you already know is easy.

So, in true Bristol tourism style, here is Clifton Suspension Bridge and its surroundings in the late autumn sunshine. It's an almost impossible structure, built in the mid-nineteenth century across the deep Avon Gorge, which itself has seen more than its fair share of people jumping to their deaths from the bridge above. The best tale of this bridge that I have heard is that of Sarah Ann Henley, who, intent on ending her life in 1885, threw herself off it only to be buoyed up by her many petticoats, which acted as a parachute and saved her life, guiding her down gently. She lived into her eighties.

I was tempted to wear something voluminous in her honour, but settled for this instead, my vintage Betty Barclay autumn dress. Its length would make it a great summer dress, were it not for the long sleeves. They are too warm for summer and too cold for winter, but perfect for sunny autumn evenings like this. I like that it is cut in a classic shape in a classic colour but that the camel is broken up by the flashes of fushia in the wings of the birds. I bought it in Camden Market in London, which happens in fact to be the place most often thought of by Londoners as a horrible tourist nightmare – I do still go, though.

Had you noticed that I never wear heels? At a quarter of an inch off 6ft tall, I love them but find wearing them hard – these ones make me 6ft 3! I shouldn't care of course, but adding 3 inches does make me tower over most people, and makes having a conversation a little awkward. I have resolved to wear high shoes more though – these photographs remind me just how much I like them.

Dress: vintage Betty Barclay
Cardigan: Topshop
Tights: M&S
Shoes: Long Tall Sally

This time of year...

2010-10-01T19:07:00.000+01:00

It's October and I can't really believe it. Autumn kicked in with real intent just a few days ago and took everyone by surprise and left me wondering whether or not I should have got a chimney sweep in during the summer – probably the only old-fashioned necessity that I'm not a fan of. I think it'll keep until next year. I'm very much looking forward to lighting it and curling up beside it though.

When October hits and I begin to remember what the cold feels like, I always start thinking about the inside of the house, woefully neglected during a summer mostly spent outside. I begin to remember all the good things about being cooped up in the house – lighting the fire and eating autumn dinners with cosy lights on and hiding under my amazing winter duvet, not yet deployed.

Autumn is my absolute favourite season for food too - butternut squash and pancetta in risottos, sausages in casseroles and as many root vegetables as possible. I've been hoarding pictures of beautiful houses in which I would love to spend my autumn and winter, and thought I would share them here, for a bit of a change!

Design Sponge

Design Sponge and Little Green Notebook

Imagine sitting in front of the fire on that gorgeous blue couch in the top picture! Just to keep things topical, below are a couple of things I've been coveting from the new Anthropologie A/W collection. On discovering that Anthropologie have opened a new store in London, I fully intend to go. No matter how many times I tell myself that their clothes are infinitely makeable, and vastly overpriced, I can't deny that I do love looking at them and imagining wearing them around my chilly autumn house.

Anthropologie

Burnt Sienna

2010-09-27T20:53:00.000+01:00

1. Garance Dore 2.Hanneli Mustaparta 3. Sonia Rykiel resort '11

Burnt sienna is a rustic and rich name for a colour, officially borne of burning a specific type of clay, but unavoidably conjuring images of Italy! I would never even have known its name were it not for Ben's box of oil paints, all carefully labelled with their official titles. Whatever you know it as though, this colour seems to be appearing in all the right places at the moment, and with a name like burnt sienna, it just must be the perfect colour for the approaching season.

There are a lot of these slightly muted hues around at the moment – dusty blue and mustard are two of my other favourites. They have a warm, but almost 'non-colour'-ness about them which I think must be perfect for paler skin tones in the unavoidably even paler autumn and winter.

Somewhere between a too-dull brown and a too-harsh red, I see it going perfectly with grey or cream ribbed tights or soft woollen jumpers, and maybe even with a splash of royal blue as in Garance's picture above. I love the way that Sonia Rykiel styles hers with creams and a daring red highlight. Hanelli's blouse comes from Zara, unbelievably, and goes so well with easy denim.

All Topshop 1. Dress £45/$71 2. Blouse £40/$65 3. Top £28/$45

Topshop's selection is surprisingly extensive. The above are my favourites – the blouse in the middle would go perfectly with faded blue jeans or cut offs; the beautifully draped dress with those ribbed grey tights again and maybe a cosy wool cardigan, and the loose top would be great with skinny black jeans and Sonia Rykiel style red lips.

Left: Vintage 60s dress $30 Top: Librarian blouse $18 Bottom: Burnt umber dress $34

Etsy has the best and most original selection. These three are my vintage favourites – if money were no object, I'd have them all! The polka dotted blouse is such a playful take on quite a sophisticated colour, while the beautiful vintage dress on the left is very sophisticated and is another that would look great with grey. The neckline on the dress on the right is so Joan Holloway, and so pretty. These are grand potential autumn staples – a little nod to the fallen leaves.

Love Me or Leave Me

2010-09-21T02:30:00.000+01:00

Somehow, I've managed to leave at least a little bit of time between posting editorials shot by Kalle Gustafsson. They're like Zara lookbooks – you want to post one every month, but have to limit yourself to one per season. This one I think is perfect for mid-September, that period when the light is still bright, the clocks haven't quite gone back and when it is getting chillier and nearing time to merrily light the fire or tentatively turn on the radiators. I already feel resigned to finding another irresistible postable beauty for the deepest depths of December though.

This selection comes from the Swedish Fashion Tale magazine, and has a much colder feel than the last editorial of his that I posted (the beautiful Late Summer) but the attempt at a narrative style is almost the same: female models staring into the lens, hard and haughty, or looking emotional in beautiful clothes.

All images from SkarpAgent.se

The colours are true icy autumn and winter, and remind me how lovely soft blues and greys are, as well as plaid, wool and dark flannel. The makeup here is also typically winter – and unashamedly 60s Bardot – dark eyeliner and resultant smoky tears. In spring and summer I am minimal with makeup, but brash autumn and winter (I now remember) means more of everything – eyeliner especially, although I'm not sure I would want to wear quite that much.

In terms of fashion, this, I suppose, is neither new nor groundbreaking, but in a time when we do nothing but look to the past for inspiration, who really needs that? I love the neckline on the navy blue jumper on the boat, the layering of wool, the denim and, especially, those brown leather lace-up boots. Original this is not, but there is plenty to admire, inspire and take away, not in terms of new season trends perhaps, but certainly in terms of real, useful and achievable style.

Brambles

2010-09-16T18:58:00.000+01:00

Blustery early autumn and its abundance of fruit, nourished by sunshine all summer and weighing on the ends of heavy branches by September, inspires me to start baking more than any other season. There isn't really any choice – there's more fruit to be picked than anyone could ever eat, and it would be terrible to let it go to waste. I already have a bag full of Bramley apples waiting to be tarte tatin-ed, and am terrified that they'll spoil before I get around to it.

Crumbles and pies are great desserts to make with autumn fruit, but I really like the idea of being able to preserve a little bit of summer in a little jar for the winter. Bramble (blackberry if you are anywhere other than Scotland) and apple jelly is the perfect way! This jelly is amazing on floury homemade scones or thick toast, especially if you, like me, still childishly dislike the 'bits' in jam.

I made the jelly and the scones last week – they are so smooth and creamy together – and now I have three little jars of summer all stored up, squirrel like.

The recipe, in case you fancy it, is on my Tumblr.

An Auction

2010-09-11T20:38:00.000+01:00

Auctions have always fascinated me. It's nice to imagine auctions as they were – the main method of selling antiques before the days of the Internet and frantic eBay clicking. Usually the preserve of the unemployed and retired (in real time and on daytime television) it seemed right for me as a pseudo-freelancer to go to my first one, an auction of vintage textiles.

With their old-fashioned gavels and fast talking auctioneers, I had quite romantic hopes for auctions, but really it was quite terrifying. I sat as still as possible for fear of bidding £200 for a box of tablecloths, which is (amazingly) what they were selling for. You don't really have to be that careful though – the auctioneers are able to tell a bid from a nose scratch. Just at the £40 mark on a table runner, Benjamin (a serial gesticulator) held up four fingers to illustrate something he was saying – if you can get away with that, you can get away with anything.

Aside from the comedy of accidental bidding, these auctions are perfect for picking up pieces from the 1950s and 1960s (and even from the 1920s, 1930s and the preceding century if you are very lucky) at very fair prices. The general bidders here were bidding for the curtains and those tablecloths, and being of an age that suggested having lived through the 1960s, they were mostly uninterested in the vintage clothes, which was what I was there for.

Little countryside auctions are the best to go to, (this was in Powys, Wales) as fewer vintage dealers and shop owners venture that far out. If you are willing to make the effort, you can really reap the rewards. This auction was full of job lots of vintage patterns and clutches, Mappin & Webb handbags, and Jaeger headscarves, estimated at around £30–£70 and often selling for much less. Other boxes were crammed with wartime Union Jack bunting, christening gowns, 1930s wedding veils and sequined, feathered 1920s hats. All manner of things, all with the potential to sell at £20 – which is a price well worth the journey.

I picked up three beautifully made 1960s dresses, which will be making either an eBay or an Etsy appearance next week – you will have to wait until then to see them. For a taster, the collar of one of them is on the left in the first photograph.

A Wedding and the 60s from Sweden

2010-09-07T11:41:00.001+01:00

These pictures reminded me of my first day of school. You dress up in your uniform, the first of many uniformed days of the rest of your life, and have your photograph taken before you leave. These felt almost the same, but this time I was just about to go to my first ever wedding.

I bought my dress in the very early spring from H&M and with this wedding in mind. In the shop it blends into the background and seems just another low quality Scandinavian creation, but outside of it, (especially six months after buying it – six months is a long time in H&M stock turnarounds) it takes on an unexpected originality, adopting a Mad Men meets An Education feel in terms of its marriage of youthful colours and flippy skirt to a stauncher and more serious shift bodice.

The shape, cut and material quality are surprising considering its lowly Swedish mass market origins. There are flaws of course (it was much too cheap to have been cut perfectly), particularly at the back, where it gapes a little at the top. Otherwise, the material is weighty and the pattern almost reminiscent of Erdem. The line from the bust to the waist looks as though it might have been tied back with a waist tie when in fact it is just perfectly constructed. The flare is just about right, and the addition of lipstick- and iphone-carrying pockets and a inside lining both makes it feel much more expensive than it really was and means that you don't have to worry about a bag.

Nowadays I often feel strange wearing an exclusively 'new' outfit, so I tried to rescue this one with a pair of sparkly green inherited earrings, which were probably originally purchased in the 60s, to give the outfit at least a little bit of authenticity. They are very little, and seemingly invisible in these photographs, but I'm sure they made all the difference.

The wedding itself was in a field, at the top of a beautiful hill reached by a windy track with grass growing up the middle. There was even a little ceilidh – a Scottish dance that in Scotland they train you for almost from that often-photographed first day of school – full of spinning and waltzing and perfect fun for flared dresses.

Dress: H&M
Shoes: Topshop
Earrings: Vintage

La Garçonne

2010-09-02T20:30:00.000+01:00

I am no garçonne, in the original meaning of the word, but I do think this outfit fits the title. Born of being in a great spot for photographs with only a very little rucksack of clothes, this is an outfit very much thrown together, mixed and matched from my boyfriend's bag and mine, but in a style I really admire, and would wear all the time if I had enough money to do it properly.

This is the marquee for the party we were at at the weekend, just before Olive the kitten turned up. The gingham table cloths and the bunting are beautiful I think. I'd like to compile a selection of fabric cut offs and cut them into triangles and make my own bunting, ready to deploy for any kind of spontaneous celebration.

I rarely wear proper trousers, (in fact this is their debut here) probably due to teenage years of too-tallness in the early 2000s when only Topshop made affordable trousers long enough for me: it was flared hippy jeans with embroidery on the hems, dull polyester officewear or something that flapped around the ankles. It kind of put me off even trying to find nicely cut proper trousers. Then I discovered the menswear section of Gap.

It all started with Ben buying a pair. Then I, cross dresser that I am, tried them on, followed a few weeks later by my sister. Now we all have a pair. Men's trousers, like men's shirts, are just cut in a more versatile way – not to mention being much longer, which is perfect for tall girls.

In the early 2000s I remember squeezing myself into too-short, tailored-within-an-inch-of-their-lives 'blouses'; now I embrace a bit of billow. The reason I love this one, seen here before and from the Comme des Garçons collection for H&M, is that it does a bit of both – a little bit of billow, a little bit of strictness.

Trousers: (Ben's) Gap
Shirt: Comme des Garçons for H&M
Shoes: Topshop
Bow Tie: Little piece of velvet ribbon usually reserved for my head

Olive

2010-08-30T13:14:00.000+01:00

I fell in love with a kitten this weekend, and had to leave her behind.

She appeared in Ben's parents' garden, bold kitten style, having apparently been wandering the streets for a few days, and just never left. She was very skinny, and very adventurous for a little kitten who is probably too young to be outside at all. Wherever she came from, her owners, if there were any, weren't looking for her. We completely fell in love with her and named her Olive after a kitchen incident with a jar of them. I hadn't realised just how much I wanted a cat until she turned up on the doorstep.

After two days of serious soul searching and logistical thinking and predictions for the future, we decided that we couldn't take her back to our flat with us. We have a tiny garden, and there are some good cat-friendly streets behind our house, but she just seemed so happy frolicking around in the big open spaces that we thought that she would be happier elsewhere. Also our lack of a cat flap and permission to add one was a major issue, and what do you do with them when you go away? Still, I had already thought up pet names for her.

She was taken to a family with two little girls who have a garden and all the time in the world to look after her and will surely have a happy time, but that just means that we can't now change our minds, which we desperately want to. It's all terribly sad, and I can't help but imagine her padding around the flat and being hilarious and kitteny and cute. I know I'll have one one day though, and until then I'll just have to satisfy myself with Dreamcats.

To keep this vaguely clothes related, Ben's hilarious socks come courtesy of Uniqlo, his go-to destination for amusingly hued socks. The hole in them comes courtesy of orange being his favourite.

Ebay Update

2010-08-26T16:02:00.000+01:00

I have a couple of very pretty vintage items up on eBay at the moment, due to expire on Sunday evening. Everything from my Etsy shop is now there and at much lower prices, as well as some new gems like these vintage 90s Kurt Geiger T-bar heels.

Take a look, here, or follow the link in my sidebar.

Sessun AW10

2010-08-25T15:08:00.000+01:00

I have been checking French label Sessùn's website at least twice a week lately in anticipation of their autumn collection. Created by designer Emma Francois as far back as 1995, the label was conceived originally with Latin American influences in mind, but seems to have whittled said influences down in order to concentrate on fantastic material quality and cut. What's more, Sessun is sold in Urban Outfitters and ASOS, and is surprisingly affordable for a label with such a beautiful lookbook.

I definitely have a thing for faded, hazy, beach location lookbooks, as it turns out, and there were many many of them for spring, but this is the first one I have seen for autumn. I admire the atmosphere of it, although it does seem to take centre stage. The clothes, sidelined though they may be, are both simple and complex in their details, patterns, cut and materials.

All images from www.sessun.com

The long-sleeved dress recalls what the high street often forgets – that winters are cold and cardigans tiresome and negates the need for one. My childhood shopping trips with my mother around this time of year were always punctuated by exclamations such as: 'that's far too cold, you'll freeze!' and nowadays my internal shopping monologue is irritatingly similar. Both of them, though (my mother and my monologue) would be satisfied by this dress, and indeed the red coat, reminiscent of rowan berries and cosy-looking enough for snow.

I am drawn to the breton top, which seems almost to be an inverted version of itself, with thicker stripes of dark and thinner stripes of light. Tartan trousers are likely beyond me but those shoes seem to be a great solution to the dilemma of how to wear boots with tapered trousers.

It's a pity that the models' top halves are showcased the most here, as a quick look on the Urban Outftters website is enough to show you that they do some pretty great trousers, such as these ones, here. Also I would love to see what the hemline of the zipped and belted long-sleeved dress looks like, and how they styled it. The upside of this, though, is the exposure that their perfect autumn hairstyles get instead: all achievable twists and bobby-pinned turns, a modern take on 40s hair is the perfect antidote to the vast exposure that the beehive is receiving. All in, a thoroughly French, and thoroughly covetable, lookbook.

The September Issue

2010-08-19T14:04:00.000+01:00

I always save up a pound coin or four for September Vogue, no matter the volume of other more important things of a similar price I have forgone for being 'too expensive'. I buy it to pretend that I am the sort of person who has made enough money over the summer to be able to spend thousands on the 'ultimate' coat and the 'new' skirt shape, and to get me excited about the fact that we won't see the sun for another six months.

This issue is no less disappointing than last year's, in fact it is almost identical. The same cover girl, the same ideas for investment camel coats in a recession and the same 'new' skirt shapes. Vogue to me suddenly seems bored and conceited, full of lazy editorial errors and recycled ideas. It's a pity, as an established title with the clout that Vogue has could really take a risk and do something different once in a while.

Luckily for Vogue, despite everything else I cannot deny that I am a huge fan of the new/old skirt length, and always a champion of a woollen cardigan. This editorial combines the two and just happens to be the best of a bad bunch, which includes one styled and modelled by Kate Moss (because we don't see enough of that at Topshop).

All scans of UK Vogue September 2010 are via Fashionising.com

Venom aside. The skirts and dresses, colours and fabric mixing here are just my thing. It is a study in layering, marrying autumnal colours, and a lesson in ways to wear volume without feeling swamped. The tall socks and delicate ribbed tights remember that winter is cold on toes in uncomfortable shoes, and the angora and the camisoles remind me how effective layering can be (and how much I love cardigans in that deep rusty brown). Hilariously it also seems to remember that keeping hair tidy in swirly autumn winds is impossible, and advocates a messy beehive for an entirely questionable 'I meant to do that' look.

When autumn and winter come around it's tempting to just swamp oneself in wool, but this editorial teases with thoughts that it might not have to be that way. In this 50s/60s style hybrid, necks and shins, the parts that need least woolly attention, are king and queen. Could it work in the snow and in the wind and rain, with crispy leaves attaching themselves to the inside of your layered petticoats? Likely not, but as someone who spends most of her winter time in the house, looking out of the windows and sitting by the fire, it looks pretty perfect.

Clifton

2010-08-16T18:01:00.000+01:00

When I moved to England, to Bristol, from my little Scottish island, the first place I lived was Clifton village. I thought 'this is what England is like' and was amazed and terrified. Clifton village is a village within a town that feels like a village. The people who live there are the kinds of people whose wives drive Mini Coopers to lunch dates and whose husbands drive Saabs and Audis to offices five minutes' walk away and keep vintage Jaguars in the garage for glorious Sundays. Heroes and darlings of the cultural world can also be found here, playing the piano with the windows wide to see who stops to listen.

This is my favourite part, Royal York Crescent, because you can spy on these lives so effectively from here. The windows, under their humbug-striped canopies, are old and enormously wide and tall – a statement from a time when sheets of glass that size were rare – and resemble shopfronts, displaying the wares inside. There are few net curtains: an assumption that those who live or walk in Clifton are too polite to peer inside? An invitation to do just that? I always look in.

Some are minimalist white and bare inside. Others embrace the architecture and attempt a befitting atmosphere: regency armchairs, dark shiny mahogany sideboards, imperious lamps. A few have been lived in unchanged for decades, and look nicely dated, like old curiosity shops that I might like to have a rummage in, given the chance.

I wandered around it in the early afternoon in my thoroughly modern American Apparel dress, layered over a white skirt and tube top from the same, carrying my grandmother's white gloves (which she once wore to launch a ship, I'm told) and her (and my) prized neckscarf on my head, I suppose contrasting the old and the new in the same way as the buildings do. Then my camera battery ran out.

Dress, Skirt, Top: American Apparel
Scarf, Gloves, Bag: Pinched from my mother, Pinched from my mother, Charity shopped (respectively)

Awaiting

2010-08-11T15:36:00.000+01:00

Whenever we move into a season transition (I'm sure no one gets as excited about season transitions as style bloggers do – maybe gardeners?) I start vaguely awaiting my next Lula installment. I bought a subscription before my spending ban, so it feels like a free expensive luxury. Leith Clarks's tweets have been at times so exotic and interesting that I feel like this issue is going to be an extra good one.

In a similar vein, this editorial from Test magazine is so pretty that I can't stop going back to it. It is fairly Lula-esque, and is satisfying my anticipation. Technically it's a spring editorial, but I think that a) much as everyone seems to be tired of sunshine, it is still summer, and b) spring editorials are just early autumn editorials in disguise. This one is styled by Lyson Marchessault, who does admittedly style a lot of Lula editorials (including that amazing Erdem one) and photographed by Nicholas Lawn.

My favourite style is in the top picture. I love the kind of cricketing blazer with the translucent seersucker skirt. It's a look that could be easily translated to autumn's camel blazers and mid-length skirts, in a heavier cotton. I really like the model's 20s hair too – I'm always trying to twist and curl my hair into styles like that, but it's just too stubbornly straight. My sister has fantastic curls that would suit the style perfectly, and which I'm pretty jealous of!

My charity shopping trip today yielded a few good things for Autumn – probably to be sold on eBay again though, as a lot of it is verging on '90s (good '90s though of course!) and having pieces up on two different sites at the same time is too confusing for me! A lot of it is too small for me, which really is just as well, as it removes the temptation to keep them. I'll let you know when they're up.

Simple Village Girl

2010-08-05T20:14:00.000+01:00

You might have noticed that the title (and url – update your links!) of my blog have changed. Biscotti was a bit of a non-name, chosen rashly when I really had very little idea about blogging, and it has been annoying me for a while.

Simple Village Girl on the other hand is taken from a song by Belle and Sebastian ('If you find yourself caught in love') and sums me up quite well, with a little bit of irony: at heart I'll always just be a village girl, but never a simple one. Belle and Sebastian are Scottish, as I am, and are also the first band I ever saw live. So, you see, it is plenty relevant! What do you think?

As I was saying in a previous post, I'd love to meander down to the south coast of France or Italy. I'd especially like to go by train – my love of train journeys knows no bounds. This is one of my photographs of a holiday I once had in Florence, but I just discovered this post on blog BawkBawkBawk which has the most fantastic photographs of Rome and puts mine to shame! They are very beautiful.

This is what I would wear on my imaginary trip to those south coasts – try and ignore the fact that I am actually on a street in Bristol! Orange and yellowy colours seem to suit that kind of light, as you can see in the editorial I posted here. I think these pictures are of a simple village girl with her basket, so are perfect for this post.

I'm off to Wales this weekend to visit Ben's family, so this is my Friday offering, early. I hope to take a real live analogue (!) camera with me to experiment with on the trip, so we shall see how that turns out. I haven't used a camera with film for such a long time – I'm really quite excited about it.

Dress: H&M
Basket: vintage
Sandals: Toast

Etsy Experiment

2010-08-04T16:44:00.000+01:00

I've never sold anything on Etsy, (although I do find myself going there every other day to swoon over the selection of 1950s dresses on offer) so this is a bit of an experiment. Ebay is so frustrating for goodhearted sellers that it just isn't worthwhile – I'm absconding.

Anyway, these are the best bits from my first shop upload:

*1960s Yellow Top* *1970s Gypsy Girl Nude Dress*

*Turquoise Blue Skirt* * 1970s Purple Floral Lurex Dress*

The yellow top and the purple dress are easily my favourites! In other news, working in dollars is ridiculously confusing.

Late Summer

2010-07-30T11:39:00.000+01:00

It's easy to forget what season it is when you live in Britain and spend a lot of time reading fashion blogs. I'm anticipating a full blown autumn any second now, although, as my boyfriend and the calendar keep reminding me, it is the middle of high summer.

So keen are we to jump into autumn that I worry about forgetting the warmth of late summer as we dash towards the delights of tights and other such warmers that we can't wait to shake off at the first hint of spring.

This editorial for Shufti magazine, shot by Kalle Gustafsson, is a perfect portrait of late summer. The sun is lower in the sky, but the light is still warm; the leaves are becoming crisp, but are still green; and the atmosphere is of making the most of what is left. These photographs seem to capture all of that, particularly the light, and combine it with great vintage styling – I particularly (as ever) love the yellow polka-dotted dress, which just fuels my ill-advised addictions to yellow and to polka dots, neither of which suit me very well.

I always feel like I need to get away and go to the south coast of France or Italy around August and September; I think to try and make the best of the late summer last that little bit longer. The landscape images will have to satisfy me for this year; perhaps next time.

(Photographs via Skarp Agent and Dustjacket Attic)

Here is New York

2010-07-29T01:22:00.001+01:00

I recently finished reading E.B. White's essay Here is New York, a tiny little book that I feel quite conflicted about. On one hand I can't find enough people to recommend it to but on the other, I really want to keep it to myself. It's so beautifully written that I'm going to have to read it all over again to see if I can soak up some of the skill contained in it.

As a consequence I've just taken The Elements of Style out of the library to pour over – it's essentially a book about grammar, which, as Ben pointed out, most people would consider to be the driest subject matter in the world, but I am actually finding it laugh-out-loud hilarious. Perhaps it's because I just finished editing the actual driest book in the world – the third volume on the political wrangles faced by British airlines.

Beautiful Wednesdays

2010-07-28T15:35:00.000+01:00

Everything in the Chloe Pre Fall collection is very nice, despite being too expensive and mostly too impractical for any actual person. It's so easily copyable though that it has me rooting around in my wardrobe to find my old school kilt (posh Scottish boarding school, kilts required, don't ask) which I think just happens to be in that exact tartan. I love a felicitous coincidence.

Images from Style.com

It's so vintage Chanel, 1920s and 1940s all rolled into one that I can't help but feel that they pilfered all of my fashion influences and made them into a collection (of perfectly wearable shapes) that I can't afford on purpose. Still, it is lovely to look at, no?

* * *

Skirts n Shirts

2010-07-26T11:52:00.000+01:00

It has been quite a hectic week, one way or another, which is my way of excusing myself for not posting since last Sunday. I had a very long, very dry edit to finish which I had intended to do while I was on Islay, but somehow forgot that it was meant to be a holiday and that consequently I really wouldn't want to go near it. So last week was spent indoors (I'm not sure I've been outside since we got back) editing like crazy and fighting the author's semi-colon addiction.

Happily, no matter what I'm working on, I'm always thinking about something else, and in this case that something else was the important issue of skirts with shirts. I'm not talking about any prissy, straight-edged, corporate pencil skirt and cheapo shirt combination here, but lovely floaty 70s a-lines paired with lovely crispy open-collared tailoring – a perfect balance.

Marc Jacobs AW10 – Margaret Howell AW10

Threadbearer (my new favourite style blog) – LiebeMarlene (my general favourite style blog)

I love what shirts do to necks and what high waist a-lines do to waists and calves. I love contrasting floaty with sharp. I love wearing a good balanced outfit. This pairing cuts such an unusual vintage figure and is perfect for the last of the summer days when it's too cold for short sleeves and too hot for tights. As someone who is always cold, I try this a lot in the summer as I think it suits my figure – see here and here. I think though, especially looking at Margaret Howell's AW lookbook, that it's a shape that can adapt amazingly well to any weather and any season.

Windswept

2010-07-14T11:51:00.000+01:00

Islay is extremely windy today. The wind whooshes right off the sea and swirls around the house making the trees look stressed. I worry that they might lose all of their lovely green leaves a little prematurely. They are more used to the wind than I am though, so they seem to be surviving. You don't get wind like this in the city. For some idea of the atmosphere, you can garner a sense of it from this Russian animation. The sun is shining on Islay though, which makes the whole thing very difficult to dress for.

The beach is always windy, and well used to it. The reeds on the sand dunes dig in their roots and wave around in the swirls. This beach is Kilchoman, yesterday, when it wasn't so windy. It is said you can sometimes see a mythical island on the horizon, if you are lucky. I was always convinced I could see one when I was little, although I rather suspect myself of wishful thinking. We walked Jock, the very photogenic Westie, all the way to the end of the shore – he was exhausted afterwards, especially as he has a fear of water – he's very sweet.

I think you have seen this skirt before, but it has been reprised. I like how 1940s rationing this outfit looks. Woollen jumpers and floral skirts – the 1940s are a favourite decade of mine, although I think it has more to do with the can-do attitude and the general atmosphere than the clothes necessarily. The jumper is a Ralph Lauren boys' one that a friend of mine fortuitously (for me) shrunk in the wash. In fact this is probably one of the most high class 'labelled' of any of my outfits, although it is almost exclusively from charity shops.

Skirt: Handmade, thrifted
Shirt: Yves St Laurent, thrifted
Jumper: Ralph Lauren, shrunk in the wash

Gingham, Bowlers and Holidays

2010-07-08T18:23:00.001+01:00

We are driving up to the Isle of Islay (where I grew up) next week for a bit of a break from the city, and to visit my mother, sister and hilariously noisy cat. I have lots of good blog plans for the trip, which I'm quite excited about. I hope they work out. There should be lots of good photographs at any rate. The weather is going to be awful though if the forecast is to be believed, so maybe I'll be heading for autumn slightly earlier than anticipated...

This Week...

2010-07-08T17:21:00.000+01:00

... I have mostly been ... well, baking actually, and not in the American East Coast heatwave kind of way either (I wish). I love baking cakes not least because creaming sugar and butter by hand seems to be quite a workout for me (I am one of the generally weakest people I know) but just because if it works out, it's fun to share the spoils.

It was Ben's birthday on Tuesday, and although our current frugal living regime doesn't stretch to much, I decided that it could stretch to a slightly pricier cake – his favourite – carrot cake. This is a recipe that I have made before and hilariously won a cake competition with (long story) and although it does take exactly forever, it is worth it. If you fancy making it, the recipe can be found here. I usually miss out the orange peel and orange juice though as I think the mixture is moist enough already and I squeeze the grated carrot to death. The icing is absolutely amazing but the candles come separately – why do they only make them with holders enough for twelve?!

I've also had a hankering for Empire Biscuits. They are relatively old fashioned fare I think – as you can probably surmise from the name – but I used to eat them when I was little, or buy them from grannies who baked at village sales of work. They are basically two pieces of shortbread with raspberry jam in the middle and icing on the top, with a glace cherry in the middle. As I don't know anyone who likes glace cherries, I just put a dollop of raspberry jam in the middle. The recipe can be found on my Tumblr.

Foibles

2010-07-06T14:55:00.000+01:00

I always see clothes and think: 'Oh but that's so expensive – it would just be so easy and so much cheaper to just sit down, draw the pattern and make an identical one myself...'

I'm quite an impatient pattern cutter/maker of things however and, as a consequence, do things like try to draw a summer dress with a waistband without any reference to the book that has all the instructions in it. And then I run out of pattern paper.

I always do this, and pretty much always fail and get frustrated. By the end of last night, I had rather rashly decided never to cut another pattern, buy an item of clothing or read another fashion blog again. Happily this was completely ridiculous as I just can't help myself with fashion blogs and looking at clothes, and through this lack of conviction, today I stumbled upon Lauren Moffatt's spring 2010 collection.

Both images from http://shop.laurenmoffatt.net

There is such a lot to say about this that it's hard not to just hammer the keyboard, but here goes. First of all, the shoot was styled by Kate Lanphear, who is a fairly well-known and mainstream fashion name, but seemingly styling in a not so common Lula-esque way – quite whimsy (whimsy now my new Etsy search term) and playful and young and really very sweet. The styling also ties in with the unusual names that are bestowed on the pieces: my favourite of these is the 'Tunnocks and Teacakes' dress, which is a given, given my Scottishness, but other good ones are the 'Somewhere in Stockholm on a Bike Romper' which is pretty much as you would expect, and the 'Being Courted in Corsica Ruffle Dress' which is reminiscent of L'amant (The Lover), the film set in French Indochina that I mentioned here. Incidentally, I watched it, liked it and thought it very beautiful, although it is quite a raucous one.

So, although verging on the saccharine and kind of jumping on a bandwagon of Lula-ness, this fun, jolly collection has, somehow, renewed my confidence in the possibilities of making my own. Perhaps my silly, badly balanced dress doesn't actually look quite as bad as it did last night... I'll let you know.