Books And Dresses

Mega Stella

2011-08-16T14:22:00.000-07:00

My hips are, like, 10 inches larger than my waist. And really, I'm terribly short so this look will never ever be mine. But my(!) doesn't Stella look fine!

I've only just come round to Stella but now I'm honey nut loopy about the woman. I'd add another picture but that would be a bit daggy, a Stella Gallery, that is. I shall slip one in every now and again, perhaps.

Sure, It's August Right Now but

2011-08-14T13:55:00.000-07:00

You'll like this one, I'm sure.

The Fast & The Furious

2011-08-01T14:37:00.000-07:00

That bit where the guy hears a sound like rain on his crashed car's bonnet when actually it's the sound of the blood of his formerly pregnant, but now dead, lover's blood is pretty grizzly.

The author writes like a man pasting up a billboard poster on a ladder, with a big slopping brush and a bucket full of glue.

Greener Than Most

2011-08-01T14:32:00.000-07:00

My feet are mostly green, like the pod of a pea. What colour are yours?

Interview Taboo

2011-07-21T02:56:00.000-07:00

Writers talking about writing. I was nervous about the whole thing. Of course these worries were entirely allayed by these excellent interviews that may not hold the secret to writing like Truman Capote but certainly corral you through the voluptuousness of these writers' characters to such an extent that you feel you yourself are the interviewer and here Capote is, just here, with his funny dog and funnier face. My personal takeaway tidbit is from the Kurt Vonnegut session:

Interviewer: You went to Cornell University after Shortridge?
Vonnegut: I imagine.
Interviewer: You imagine?
Vonnegut: I had a friend who was a heavy drinker. If somebody asked him if he'd been drunk the night before , he would always answer off-handedly, Oh, I imagine. I've always liked that answer. It acknowledges life as a (boozy) dream.

Would I recommend this book to a friend? I imagine.

Sexy Swimwear

2011-07-09T08:12:00.001-07:00

Oh ES Magazine - thank GOD, what I've been waiting for, all of my life.

Marni Malady

2011-05-17T12:55:00.000-07:00

A funereal miasma hangs about my Marni jellies. It's too tragic. When I was little I used to scream and scream if my mother threatened to dispose of my old shoes. We reached a compromise whereby I got to keep one of the pair, under the bed (out of sight) until such a time as I might be able to cope with the trauma of full renunciation of said mary-janes, sandals, clogs etc. Getting rid of even one seems too sad. This all reflects very badly upon my character, but there you go, what can I say?

Vegetable Matter

2011-05-09T13:09:00.001-07:00

Ours is a relationship based on looks alone.
I want to know nothing of what occurs within her fine looking self
If ever her bright exterior falls away I will dump her in the nearest dumpster and think of her no more.

Rear Guard

2011-04-20T12:23:00.000-07:00

Which, surely lobotomised, art director was responsible for this?

Letters

2011-04-12T12:51:00.000-07:00

Tauba Auerbach was featured in the Fall Paris Review's portfolio. They included this, a picture of hers, OH NO. For those of us who like a difficult novel, this is surely a touchstone piece of literature, in which language creaks under the pressure of materiality. Marvellous.

Underthings Royale

2011-04-09T07:09:00.000-07:00

Agent Provocateur : Royal Wedding Window from Books & Dresses on Vimeo.

The royal wedding leaves me cold. Cold as a fish. But I was as tickled as a trout by Agent Provocateur's royal wedding themed windows. Mostly because I've seen more passion in a pair of socks than any observation of the couple in question reveals. Poor them. No, poor me, these royal knickers will set me back a king's ransom!

France & Russia, Quickly

2011-04-03T09:21:00.001-07:00

Mr Huntley, on Huntleyblog, has a smart way of reviewing films. He simply says 'Must Watch' or 'Don't Watch'. I have decided to employ this method in order to convey my feelings about my two latest reads.

READ: The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky.
A novel that makes you truly sad that the laws of the universe do not allow a first reading, twice.

DON'T READ: Bel-Ami, Maupassant.
I must have missed something (was my translation atrocious?) but this novel made me truly sad that the laws of the universe are such that I cannot reclaim the time I invested between those covers. Low point: "..vague and irresistible powers that no woman could resist".

Team Talk

2011-03-30T14:37:00.000-07:00

What are you made of - Crompton-Candy, or Collishaw?

I-D Magazine: December 2002

2011-03-26T06:02:00.000-07:00

A Flick Through I-D Magazine December 2002 from Books & Dresses on Vimeo.

BEST BIT: That Sunday shoot. Loopy about the diamante skirt. Sure, my legs are like two uncooked Cumberland sausages but he who dares, wins.

Monogram Mania

2011-03-16T13:37:00.000-07:00

I think all authors should have their own monograms. The Nobel winners, at least.

Liberty and Relief

2011-03-14T13:30:00.000-07:00

If you're foreign to England you may not be familiar with Comic Relief. Every March we all wear plastic red noses and do things to raise money for impoverished children, like sitting in baths of baked beans and shaving eachother's eyebrows off. Well Liberty of London have opted to make these rather nifty hankies/scarves for the occasion, featuring their traditional liberty print but WITH RED NOSES ON. What a triumph. I shall wear one. It will go well with the beans and my newly blank expression, come March 18th.

Torc Talk

2011-03-07T13:32:00.000-08:00

This picture was sent to me by a friend who knows my penchant for the style of the over 75s. This fine lady was unnamed in the accompanying article but is an illustrator of some description. Of course what's driving me honey nut loopy isn't her occupation but her matching of a truly wild looking torc (boudiccea at the discotheque) with the demure cashmere. Sure it's a shame that it wasn't a twinset but hats off, all the same. And no, I already looked on EBay, the sly old thing must have her own dealer.

Mr Bumby and F Puss in Paris

2011-03-01T10:48:00.001-08:00

Hemingway. This isn't Books & Throbbing Intellect so best keep it short. Best bit: "Since I had started to break down all my writing and get rid of all facility and try to make instead of describe, writing had been wonderful to do.". And one of my favourite things about Hemingway is his use of flat catch-all words 'bad', 'good' etc. I was once castigated by a teacher for using the word 'nice' - it's scattered through A Moveable Feast and each time I read it was a pleasant little victory.

"Cellulite Problem? Tough Shit!"

2011-02-28T12:00:00.000-08:00

Cheap Date Fall 2002
I cannot count the number of ways in which I love Cheap Date but these ads for charity shops and American thrift stores are nipping at the biscuit.

City Break

2011-02-20T06:45:00.000-08:00

I have a pain, a pain in my foot and it has been one of those awful February days when the sky seems to have dropped on your head. A cold, damp and heavy hat. Things can go one of two ways on such a day. Either you cosy up and enjoy your confinement or you run slightly mad and wimper as you limp about the house in your tea stained dressing gown. Nothing happens on these days and the British are good at enduring them quietly.

I have read Invisible Cities with my injured foot couched on cushions and one eye on the window, looking for action. I have seen a bird peck at a plant and a man put something in a shed. Yes, Invisible Cities is a perfect choice for a day that seems to have dropped from the calendar altogether.

"Cities & Eyes . 3

After seven days' march through woodland, the traveler directed towards Baucis cannot see the city and yet he has arrived. The slender stilts that rise from the ground at a great distance from one another and are lost above the clouds support the city. You climb them with ladders. On the ground the inhabitants rarely show themselves: having already everything they need up there, they prefer not to come down. Nothing of the city touches the earth except those long flamingo legs on which it rests and, when the days are sunny, a pierced, angular shadow that falls on the foliage.

There are three hypotheses about the inhabitants of Baucis: that they hate the earth; that they respect it so much they avoid all contact; that they love it as it was before they existed and with spyglasses and telescopes aimed downward they never tire of examining it, leaf by leaf, stone by stone, any by ant, contemplating with fascination their own absence."

A Small John

2011-02-16T12:50:00.000-08:00

What do we say to these new Penguin Mini Modern Classics, then? Of course there's no question over the fiction. The content has been deemed Classic enough to be called to this most exclusive and frightfully elegant of clubs (surely as an author, you must yearn for entry?) so it is all a question of packaging. A small book, that can be slipped easily and cheaply into a pocket or handbag can only be a good thing. A small and classic book with which one might do the same must be an extremely good thing. So, just for once, I'm not going to be a snob; I will like these little books. Small enough to fit in my very little handbag but meaty enough for me to really chow down between Clapham Junction and Riddlesdown.

Appalling Apparel

2011-01-31T13:09:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's leading column in the Observer magazine was concerned with the raunchy American Apparel ads. It pointed to the graffiti that had appeared on one AA (un)clad billboard in the US : "gee I wonder why women get raped". I may find the AA ads objectionable but I should be able to roll around in a thong and hiking boots, juicy as a Californian fruit farm and if you rape me you should still have your Johnson lobbed off. People with handsome necks aren't asking to be quietly strangled, after all.

Newman for a New Year

2011-01-22T08:23:00.000-08:00

The new year is a sad and grey time, full of dreams of Summer. Here's a lovely summer snap with the ever fresh faced Paul Newman and perpetually lovely Joanne Woodward. In these dark days you have to take pleasure where you can. Looking at this and concentrating very hard you can, just (almost - try harder), feel the Mediterranean sun on your eyelids and those little bits of sad between your shorts and hot, tanned torso. Really, give it a go.

Bellowhead

2011-01-10T13:34:00.000-08:00

I received Saul Bellow's 'Letters' for Christmas. It's great. Really, it is. Here is a chunk from a missive he shot off to jilted girlfriend, Yetta. Saul had just turned seventeen:

"...I, the young idealist will lay his woes and his Heart at Pearl's feet. If she spurns them then I will go home and write heart-rending poetry and play the violin. If not, I will lapse into a lethargic contentment that will last only as long as the love lasts. For love stupefies.

So I sever relations with you.

We may still be casual friends. But some day when I am in my dotage and you are many chinned and obese we may be reconciled. In the Interim be happy - if my notorious skepticism allows me, I too will endeavour to find contentment with Pearl.

So Yetta,
It is Goodbye-
You are at liberty to do as you like with this letter."

Sure he sounds like a bit of a prig, but everyone is, at 17. When I was 17 all I could manage was a one fingered gesture in lieu of an artful dismissal.

These days I believe it is de rigeur to dump via the 'poop in a box' method. Popular TV characters get dumped on a post-it. I did once know a girl who was dumped through a letter but the chap in question was a pen pal from the Black Forest. Things are not as they once were. That, however, is why Saul had a Nobel, and us? We have none.

Sartre as Scamp

2011-01-04T14:31:00.000-08:00

This is a favourite cover.
Of a book that contains a favourite quote: "To this day I would rather read 'thrillers' than Wittgenstein". Right on, JP.

Fun Fleur

2011-01-03T23:09:00.000-08:00

Forgive me, for I did not know of Flair. If you are similarly ignorant of such fashion bits and bobs Flair was published for 12 months only - 1950-1951 and was a bricolage of pull-outs, articles, stories, fashion shots, sections imbued with smells and all sorts of good things. At the helm of the good ship Flair was Fleur Cowles, here she is, above. What an impressive looking lady with a hand topped out with her honking Russian emerald. Apparently, (forgive me) Fleur was a bonne femme, hob-nobbing with the stars whilst enjoying the lifestyle of a millionaire-ess but really you can keep all that, I just rather like this shot - a fantastic looking woman who is busy busy busy with who knows what.

Biff Boff Bam

2010-12-06T12:16:00.000-08:00

Biff Brannon is the name of a character in the above.
Biff is such a wonderful name. If I were to have a son I would almost certainly name him Biff.

Virginie, Valie & Cecilia

2010-12-01T08:30:00.000-08:00

I am on the train with my newly acquired copy of Virginie Despentes' King Kong Theory (you can go ahead and picture the scene). I am using a postcard as a bookmark. The postcard flashes about as I find my place, Valie Export, scowling in crotchless trousers. And, when I find my place, the image glares at the seats opposite me. At the next station a woman settles across from me and a fat confection emerges from her handbag, the pink characters peek out between sugared polka dots: P.S I Love You. And, dear reader, I would like to fancy that Valie's look hardened.

Despentes' book reads fast and loose, as if it were either written or translated at 100mph. Which suits a text that is angry and earnest, a not un-refreshing style in these days of well considered positions and professional, if often uncomfortable, fence sitting. Of course, when writing about women's issues (oh dear, a fence sitting term, let me revise) ...Feminism Despentes has every reason to be angry. Despentes has been raped, Despentes has been a prostitute, Despentes has directed a film about her experiences, Despentes has worked with porn stars, Despentes has watch hundreds of porn films, Despentes has been interviewed on television about all of this and Despentes has recently been awarded the Renaudot prize in France for her literary endeavours. If writing about what you know is the surest way of writing well then King Kong Theory is unsurprising in its excellence.

The female sex by no means gets off lightly with Virginie but there's still some positives to accentuate so let's start there:

Rape. Oh dear, that didn't sound so positive, did it? but a good play is made by Despentes to reclaim the experience of rape for women. Rather than be a screen for a paternal society's idea of the crime, we're invited to view the victims firstly as the claimants of rightful freedoms and secondly as strong persons who are able to mentally and physically handle the trauma of this most awful of assaults. The claimant of freedom because if women had never stepped out into the world from our shady homes and protection of male relatives then the rape wouldn't have been possible. Strong persons because despite the serious trauma we "dust ourselves down" and get on with our lives. Certainly, there's some rather gaping chasms in these arguments (many crimes are committed in the domestic space, for example) but I happily accept these contradictions in a book that is so alive and electric in its directness.

On prostitution Despentes is more controversial, claiming that women demand the criminalisation of prostitution because they are "scared of the competition", which is difficult to take but the point that the legalisation of prostitution would grant these women safety and freedom (both literal and economic), sticks. Why we've decided to marginalise this profession to the point of forcing its workforce into slavery and extreme danger, I'm no longer sure after reading Despentes' chapter on the subject.

Theres alot more here in King Kong Theory, on pornography (a chapter that contains some subtler arguments), on government and some plain basic attempts to include men in her sphere of reference, but it is interesting to hear her attacks on women. Why, for example, considering the sophistication of our consumer society did we never "invent the equivalent of Ikea for childcare or Apple Mac for housework?". Indeed Virginie despairs of women's reaction to what she feels is a so-called sexual revolution, feeling that it was a huge missed opportunity - "do not cast your pearls before swine". Ouch.

So back to the lady that Valie has been busy intimidating for the duration of our little journey. Is this really the extent of women's prowess? To simply yearn for missives from dead husbands? To be a yearning sex? Or is this something different? Something Virginie also points out in the pages of King Kong Theory? That we put ourselves in our own place, scrambling for the identities pre-fabriated for us hundreds of years ago: the good mother, the little lady, the slut, the homemaker, the wife - the lovers of pink and diamonds and the easy life. Because never have women been so free and never have we been so desperate to give all the appearance of rejecting these hard fought liberties. Virginie would say it's because we're terrified of the retribution, that "since time immemorial leaving the cage has been severely punished". And so it seems we adopt many of these types as our own and marketers inevitably sell us want we want, tied up with ribbons and adorned with polka dots. It is against these types that Virginie is doing much of her battling, her colours instead for the complex, desiring and strong female individuals that are so often swallowed whole. No longer the adulteress, the bimbo, the frigid but Mary and Laetitia and Virginie, because "being Virginie...is a more interesting business than anything else going on out there". Indeed (and hooray), if only we all believed it.

Jolly Rauncher

2010-11-21T14:16:00.000-08:00

Gucci 05

Gucci 10

Things were a lot raunchier five years ago. My magazines are sadly devoid of bulges, of late.

The Good Ship S/S '05

2010-11-15T14:47:00.000-08:00

Remember the good old days of S/S05? Tom Ford at Gucci? Hedi at Dior? When me and my girls went about throwing tarantulas at good looking boys, who'd eat them and ask us out for a creme de menthe to top off the evening? You don't? It was different for you, you say? Well jeez Louise, you sure missed out.

Frank-o-phile

2010-11-04T00:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was ill and spent the day agitating my warm bedsheets and bothering passers-by for cups of lemonade. Whilst occupied with these things I switched on the radio and remembered how much I enjoyed it. In my last place of work we all sat in our headphones to avoid conversation but, these days, since moving on from that Trappist fashion cave, I have been enjoying more conversation and less You and Yours. So it was nice, for one day, to indulge again and of course Frank O'Hara wrote a poem about nearly this very thing. Coincidentally I've been thinking about Frank a lot. Or, more specifically, I've been thinking in Frank's voice a lot - surely he had one of the very finest accents? I entertain myself with attempts at translating my little English squeak into his thick lilting drone of a New Yorker. Slow karaoke.

Radio

Why do you play such dreary music
on Saturday afternoon, when tired
mortally tired I long for a little
reminder of immortal energy?

All
week long while I trudge fatiguingly
from desk to desk in the museum
you spill your miracles of Grieg
and Honegger on shut-ins.

Am I not
shut In too, and after a week
of work don't I deserve Prokofieff?

Well, I have my beautiful de Kooning
to aspire to. I think it has an orange
bed in it, more than the ear can hold.

2010-10-18T12:51:00.000-07:00

Since all those shows everyone's been just bananas over bananas, no? I am by no means any kind of exception and was overjoyed to come into possession of a banana top myself, just the other week. THE ONE ABOVE, no less. My very favourite from those heady noughty days of making a nasty, slathery mess on the Miu Miu window every few days or so. But wait a few years and the world is your gently worn oyster so here I am sitting in my banana palm, in my banana top, playing with the monkeys and listening to that troubling Pop number B-A-N-A-N-A-S. I'll throw you a vine when I'm ready to come down!

What'll I do with just a photograph?

2010-09-28T12:48:00.000-07:00

When I'm alone
With only dreams of you
That won't come true
What'll I do?

California Dreaming

2010-09-21T13:15:00.001-07:00

It's come to Autumn and all I want to do is dress like a host of super juicy flowers on a tree. I want to be saturated in thick hues and gather all the blooms for my own branch and wow passers by with my eye popping palette of picturesque pzazz! I want to look like Skittles taste when you throw them into your mouth, all at once, right now! A truly grande melange!

I look to my own wardrobe and I find something resembling a funeral in February.

tsssf.

Bishop to Rook

2010-09-13T13:51:00.000-07:00

At the weekend The Guardian Review featured an article by William Boyd on the poet Elizabeth Bishop. Have I mentioned how little I know about poetry? Well if I haven't, I don't, know anything, that is. But this woman led an extraordinary life and I've not much stopped thinking about her since Saturday. One of the many engrossing things about her work is that the poems took months, years to ripen. And here comes the crux of my problem with poetry: these exquisite gems of literature, they ought to be presented in velvet boxes and guarded by men in dark suits but instead they come in a wodge from a dirty shelf and you gobble them up, greedy to find this and that when what you should do is set aside time for passions to develop, time to swim in the depths of syntax and syllable. So here is my little ration, my little golden morsel, enough for a king and enough for a pauper:

Casabianca

Love's the boy stood on the burning deck
trying to recite `The boy stood on
the burning deck.' Love's the son
stood stammering elocution
while the poor ship in flames went down.

Love's the obstinate boy, the ship,
even the swimming sailors, who
would like a schoolroom platform, too,
or an excuse to stay
on deck. And love's the burning boy.

A Pair of Bobby Dazzlers

2010-08-30T10:02:00.000-07:00

Recently I have been all over big earrings. They're too much fun and very good for lazy people, like me, as they are a quick pzazz pit-stop on the road to a jolly old outfit. Of course being so heavy you have to wait until the last minute before putting them on. I have had to employ a man to carry mine. He puts them in his pocket and just before I walk through the door, the moment prior to pushing on that bell, the second before entering the kebab shop to rapturous applause I say "R! The required PLEASE!" and he extricates them from his pocket 'pop' pop', I clamp them to my lobes and in I walk, half an inch shorter but at least five grams happier.

Above you can see some of my current favourites. There's an awful good shop for them on the way from Notting Hill Gate tube to Portobello Road that I would remember the name of, if I were a useful blogger. But, alas, alack I am not...

Beauvoir Bower

2010-08-23T13:26:00.000-07:00

It's been awful nasty weather here in England. We're battening down those hatches and thinking of Autumn. To my mind, there is little to recommend any month that is not May, June or July but one of the few pleasures of the stinkier seasons is curling up indoors with a big stack of dusty old books. I think it's only right to uphold certain personal standards on rainy afternoons indoors so this coming season I will be taking my cue from Simone, who obviously knows exactly how these things ought to be done. Plus a few pairs of long johns. and thermal knickers. but definitely with a smattering of jewels and a posture that implies a massive intellect. One can but try...

Cover Story

2010-08-15T04:54:00.000-07:00

It shouldn't matter, should it? But it does, doesn't it?

Louis & Marc, the Sun Kings

2010-08-09T13:06:00.000-07:00

The other day I went to the new Louis Vuitton store on Bond St. I couldn't get over how many people were handing over cash at the bag bars. In fact the whole ground floor was crawling with people spending what would be for me, an unforgettable amount of money on this bit of nonsense or that bit of nonsense - a cowboy belt, a phone case, a poodle pouch. Busy Busy Busy. When I mounted the stairs, however, it was just me and 14 security guards. Just me, alone with all the ridiculously beautiful clothing and directional accessories. Just me and the security guards, fingering the fur trims. I couldn't believe it! All those rich folks! letting all this gather dust. Dusty dusty dusty. As you may have heard, or indeed seen with your own eyes, there is a book room. In which one of the very nice attendants whipped me through his wares. And really, its all super stuff but seeing as the rich ladies on the ground floor wouldn't contemplate the strain of stairs to purchase prime Marc cuts I can't imagine that they'd be stampeding up for Susan Sontag. Perhaps its just there to make the gawpers and fingerers, like me, feel more at home, in case of a lottery win or an unexpecteded inheritance. Which is a-ok, really.

Here is my favourite picture from the opening party, covered in Harpers Bazaar. Anjelica H & Jerry H & somewhere back there is Donna Summer. They look utterly themselves, unlike us young people who rush around, attempting to look like someone else. I guess that's one of the blessings of age, the confidence to be yourself completely and not a fuzzy version of Britain's Next Top Person. Huzzah Angelica! Bravo Jerry! You've earned it!

No Business Like Shoe Business

2010-08-06T11:05:00.000-07:00

Whilst I love many of the ads that are fresh in the mags for this coming A/W there's not too much humour to be had, is there? Dearest Selfridges have bucked the trend to send themselves up (once more) in these marvellous shoe gallery ads. Thank goodness they've dropped all that snoresome photomontage and gone back to what they do best - letting monied shoppers revel in their ridiculousness like Augustus Gloop in a chocolate river. And what is more ridiculous than having 55,000 shoes in stock at any one time?! glug glug glug!

Nite Versions

2010-08-02T13:58:00.000-07:00

From Proust to Celine.

Whilst only a few years separate them, it is a dark gulf that lies between their styles. Celine’s back-cover describes him as France’s most “disenchanted” novelist and whilst the word sounds too quaint when seen next to some of his spectacularly dingy passages (yes, dingy but certainly spectacular) it does seem apt. The enchantments of the narrator’s (and so, you imagine Celine’s) exuberant youth are shredded by his experiences in the First World War. The glamourous veil, behind which he feels we hide from the deeply troubling depravity of Modernity, is most certainly, irrevocably torn.

Through this ragged aperture Celine presents life as he sees it. Life as, for him, it is:

On the human:
"You know about innards? The trick they play on tramps in the country? They stuff an old wallet with putrid chicken innards. Well, take it from me, a man is just like that, except that he's fatter and hungrier and can move around, and inside there's a dream"

On his, the narrator's, soul:
"Unquestionably, my soul was as obscene as an open fly".

On words:
"When you stop to examine the way words are formed and uttered, our sentences are hard put to survive the disaster of their slobbery origins. The mechanical effort of conversation is nastier and more complicated than defecation. That corolla of bloated flesh, the mouth, which screws itself up to whistle, which sucks in breath, contorts itself, discharges all manner of viscous sounds across a fetid barrier of decaying teeth - how revolting! Yet that is what we are adjured to sublimate into an ideal. It's not easy, since we are nothing but packages of tepid, half-rotted viscera, we shall always have trouble with sentiment."

This view is unremittingly bleak but not without odd moments of humour that peek on through, like quick sun rays on god-awful days. Of course, Ferdinand Bardamu, the narrator, quickly stamps on such moments, but Celine allows them a fleeting presence on the page and despite Bardamu’s numerous flaws and faults you cannot help but root for his team of a lonely and filthy one.

Apart from the incredible dexterity of prose there are some interesting technical moments and shifts in narrative style that pile into this novel and give it a depth of field, as well as a facet that appeals to those train-spotters of literature (amongst whom I would certainly count myself) who enjoy such backflips and somersaults in technique.

This novel is a literary palate cleanser, I feel like an etch-a-sketch over which the little white plastic handle has passed – all my messy nonsense cleared away. Ready and waiting to clutter myself up some more with knotty sentiment and prose into which you can slip like a somnambulant, returning to a large and deeply comfortable bed. Yes, it's In Search of Lost Time, Vol III for me.

Pauline, in her Wine Den

2010-08-01T08:15:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of Pauline de Rothschild, taken by Cecil Beaton in the 60s and published in this month's Elle Decoration. I sure do love the style. Her plait induces a yearning for my lost long hair and that stiff collar knocks my socks off. Let's not discuss that little neat bow at the end of her coiffure either, it'd be a little too much for me. And oh she looks awful happy. But then I would be, if I were a De Rothschild. Really, it's incredibly easy to be an aesthete and treat your 'houses like works of art' (too many s's in that sentence) when you're drippingly wealthy and have nothing else to do. I could manage the job perfectly. She even built a 'wine-themed art museum'. Let's a take a moment for that one. A Wine Themed Art Museum.

Her riches(and my resulting rather stinky prejudice) do not, however, affect the fact that her hair and dress and look in this photo are just lovely. Really, that should be good enough for me.

Pop Hits!

2010-07-27T12:06:00.000-07:00

Here I am! Returned from my hol!
I'm at least four stone heavier, a slightly yellow shade of pale and have developed a penchant for cherry brandy, ah yes, good times indeed.
I was eager to break out the holiday snaps and show you my new best friend. We rode around the Adriatic together and I reposed against his sticky, salty, hot plastic sides.

I'm sure you love him as much as I do, his name is Fergal. Which may well be Croatian for cheap nonsense. And dearest Fergal got me thinking how much I do love the cheap nonsense. I trace my lurges towards the tacky to when I came of style age as a funny looking teen. We were all nuts for plastic and jaunty bits then - Tatty Devine was the end, Trash was the club and Julien MacDonald could still walk the streets with his head held high. Here's a page from my scrapbook back in ye Olde 2003-ish:

I am now a desperate desperado for that Luella brickwork skirt. Anyway, I digress. Not least because I'm trying to put my finger on where this jollity tips over into what I consider a bit of an over-conscious snooze fest. I think it's happened here (photo from Because Magazine). This Belle Sauvage (not you Lulu dear - you look like a very nice young lady indeed) looks like alot of effort - not the product of a damn fine time at all..

Add that to your snooze diorama. But when it's good it is monstrously fab. Whilst I imagine I'd want to hit Jeremy Scott on the nose if I actually met him (down Jeremy, I said DOWN!) I'd happily clamber aboard his party barge with these jolly fellows...

And those Giles gonks? Sign me up! Those definitely look like the product of a ferdent sense of humour. And, after all, what are clothes if not items to window dress your good times?! Uh! A Gonk! a Gonk! My small kingdom for a Gonk!

Gosh this blog post was a little breathless, wasn't it? It's post-hol twitch, I expect. Back to my langourous self soon, I'm sure.

Hol

2010-07-10T14:54:00.000-07:00

hello hello!
I am off on my hols for a week or two so please do excuse my absence! I shall be back with ever so many more thoughts on both books and dresses. In the meantime kick back, enjoy a 99 and think about something else for a little while.. perhaps gardening or more specifically topiary and lets talk all about it on my return. Love love, A.

Queen of the Karaoke

2010-07-04T10:34:00.000-07:00

Here I am at the Karaoke. Oh yes, Mrs P sent me the dress early, she knows how much I adored it and, being a sweetheart, popped it in the post. And then, the other week, we were Skype-ing and I was wearing the frock in question and she said, "Alice, darling you look so marvellous, will you be in my new A/W 2010 ad?'. To which I replied "Mrs P, you know I would do anything for your designs, I would travel to Timbuktu for your travel holdalls, Acapulco for your a-lines, Sub-Sahara for your tiaras and I will, of course be delighted to star in your advertisement. Don't even worry about a fee". And that, dear reader, is the story of the ridiculously lovely new Prada ads. Oh, you're wondering about the singing? Well, everyone knows I have a beautiful voice. Mrs P? I melt her heart with my saccharine sounds. Honestly, she cries her eyes out. Sometimes it can get embarrassing down Lucky Voice of a Saturday Night. So of course, she had to have me singing..

The Way of The Battenburg

2010-07-03T07:10:00.000-07:00

I am up to my eyeballs in Proust, I’m knee deep and he’s coming over the top of my wellies. Hence the lack of book posts. I am two vols in and whilst I have every intention of surfacing from his mellifluous depths before three I cannot be certain of any immediate return to reading as usual.

Of course, with such a vast scope he gives us plenty opportunity to talk of other things. The pages of only the last few days have shoved me in the direction of posts on Telephones, Stationery & Flowers. Alllll incredibly important literary matters, I’m sure but Marcel so obviously adores the fluff of appearance and the dazzle of fashion that I don’t think it’s complete, 100% sacrilege to quote him in the context of dresses/nonsense. Perhaps 82%. He will, however, never know and certainly not be listening.

So yesterday young MP went for a stroll with Mme Swann (he is still, as yet, In A Budding Grove) and delighted in the unexpected detail that was exposed during the outing. A jacket shed in unexpected warmth reveals a blouse with exquisite bows, colours and stitches. If you were to cut Mme through, for a cross-section, you would find her elegance all the way through, like a Battenburg of silks and jewels and pleasant emanations.

And this attention to detail is, I think, one of the things that I love about clothes. Vintage clothes are wonderful for this, you can have as much fun digging around the construction of some vintage items as wearing them. And designer? I would only pay for detail (and only do pay for it... second hand) - you're never going to catch me forking out a few hundred squids for some run of the mill rag. I want time and love stitched into my clothes, thank you very much and I've found it in homemade thirties nighties and noughties designer frocks (my new/old Marios Schwab CHANGES COLOUR, have that for detail) and plastic jewellery from Africa and minimalist designs where the smallest stitch can make the biggest difference. In my strange scan you can see a peek of Celia Birtwell print, some African beadwork, a little miu miu badge, some vintage beadwork/ stitching and a photo of some hand painted Dolce & Gabbana fabric. It's awfully exciting and no, it definitely needn't cost all your pennies. For me, it's always got to be jam packed full of goodness. After all, who doesn't want to look like a Battenburg? With jam around the edges.

Shrimp Net

2010-06-28T13:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday someone said I reminded them strongly of Jean Shrimpton. 'Jean from the shrimp counter you mean?' I said (it's happened before, bloody Jean). 'No' said the woman in question. And that was when I had to be restrained. Because there is some love that can't be held back by two CPOs and a small sea cadet.

Which is why I'm taking the opportunity to post this ever so popular image of The Shrimp. Exactly like me, spitting image.. could be twin sisters..

Bongo Bongo Lanvin-a-rama

2010-06-24T13:05:00.000-07:00

A dear friend of mine works at Lanvin so on no account tell her what I am about to tell you, okay? Sometimes, just sometimes I think 'yes yes Alber another dress that's all lightness and love in the world's most expensive fabric but why am I nodding off?'. And then those super ads came out in which the models are all 'POW' 'BAM' 'WHACK'. Which was exciting. And then there was jolly jolly resort last year and now some resort this year that's all ding dong bing bong boom boom boom. And that's so fantastic. So much fun. Not least because although the clothes are ruddy marvellous if you don't have the requisite gizillion squids you can achieve these ridiculously jolly looks with some fast and loose styling. The main idea seems to be to collect together all your bells and whistles (especially that insane hat you've been shying away from) and then put them all on. all on. at the same time. Lady, you're ready to go bongo bongo-ing! I know I am!

Schwab Shape

2010-06-22T13:33:00.000-07:00

So I was saving this pic for something about bustles. Only, I've just won some Marios Schwab on Ebay and I am simply beside myself, waiting, waiting for it to land on my mat. It's all I can think about. I ask for a tall Marios Schwab at the coffee shop, order a 1-6 Marios Schwab at the ticket office and, yesterday, telephoned my doctor for a mouth Schwab for no reasonable or discernable purpose. So I can't not post this. Bustles be damned. Marios Schwab. Marios Schwab. You couldn't fabricate such a name!

pom pom power

2010-06-20T11:13:00.000-07:00

I want some shoes with pom poms on! I want some shoes with pom poms on!! Richard Sackville you trend setter! I want some shoes with pom poms on. Armand Basi did some superb ones a couple of years ago in acid colours, no? Oh oh ebay! oh oh.. none on ebay. Oh how I long for some shoes with pom poms on.

Margaret Howell-do-you-do?

2010-06-15T13:17:00.001-07:00

A few posts back we saw MH in 1985, looking rather pleased in jeans, brogues, breton stripes, cardigan and snazzy specs. Here the lady is in 2010 looking rather content in jeans, brogues, a blouse, cardigan and snazzy specs. No, not much changes here in the blissful old land of Howell and why on earth should it? I rattle around my wardrobe - what heaven it must be to do a few things, impeccably. I have always thought that men have a fine time working within the pleasingly stiff constraints of shirts and trousers, that we ladies have too much choice. Here Margaret shows how, sartorially, to know thyself. and stick to yourself. Kudos Margaret! Forward Margaret! Now if only I didn't look like a squat, overfed squirrel in trousers...

Graduate Scheming

2010-06-07T12:38:00.000-07:00

Can you buy graduate pieces? Why can't you buy graduate pieces? Do we have to wait until Joan B hoovers it up and pops it on the shelves at Browns? We do, don't we? And seeing as they're new graduates the pieces must be terribly cheap, like £10 - £15... max? They must, mustn't they?? That Joan sure knows a good deal.

If I were her, and dear reader, I wish I were, most ardently, then I would snaffle up Eloise Jepherson, Helen Price, Yelena Loguiiko and Flett Bertram bits and bobs post haste. spit spot!

Kafka

2010-06-03T13:23:00.000-07:00

For a long time I've been looking for some notions for an Ex Libris plate. I feel my burgeoning library deserves one. I asked my good friend Daniel Huntley (of Huntleyblog fame) if he could do some sketches of some beloved authors for me. Unbelieveably he agreed (he's an awful busy person) and, of course, they're beyond super. I feel terribly privileged. Here's Franz looking smart as a pin and apparently there are more to come. I do believe my library plate is on its way, adorned in finest Huntley. I'm pleased as punch - really I'm beside myself. I'm going to be sticking Doris Lessing in my Hemingways and Hemingway in my Lessings. Blissful, nerdful fun. Thank you Dan.

Kenzo

2010-06-01T13:02:00.000-07:00

Today I've been sitting in the drizzle thinking about this zingy puff sleeved Summer Ensemble, with a capital E. I'd eat sherbet and roll around in some wheat, I think. The wig, I can take or leave.

Fillet O' Flaubert

2010-05-31T07:28:00.001-07:00

Flaubert too fat to fit in your Fendi? Bellow too big for your baguette? Spent all your money on Fendi baguettes and have no change left for an i-pad? Too much self respect to be seen with a Kindle? Then this action, recommended by the super tweeter, @natural_history, from the soon-to-launch Natural History, may be for you. Never mind Weight Watchers we're going to send your big fat books straight to the operating table in order to shed those unmanageable pounds.

This is a radical measure, a last resort so please do not enter into it lightly. Take a moment, count to ten. 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10.

And then assemble the above tools for the delicate operation you are about to undertake. Like me, you may want to practice on a book or edition for which you have little love (and as much as I love I.M. I do not love The Philospher's Pupil).

Firstly, take a look at your spine. You'll see that the book is roughly divided into parts. Here, one part gives around 120 pages so take a look and see where you'll want to make...

..the cut. Bend your book back on itself, along that fault line you have just identified. Then take your scissors (a scalpel would be easier, if more dangerous) and hack your way down. Careful! don't slash into those precious pages!

Oh no! you've cut your finger? Back to the safety scissors next time. For now break open one of those plasters you mustered and soldier on like the trooper you are.

Hurrah! you made it with only minor injuries! Set down your scissors. If you have some loose pages you may want to employ those elastic bands to hold things together whilst you zip, at lightening speed, through the...

..mathematics. Brandish your ruler and measure up how much sticky plastic you're going to need. Measure length + your new spine width + how much you'll need either side to keep it secure.

Cut out your rectangle of sticky plastic (I've used wood effect but I think a jolly colour would be preferable) and smooth it on.

Looks good! Like a first year pupil's finest work your plastic is both smooth and rather slick. If you've stuck your very tightest your pages should be secure! IF THEY ARE NOT..then use a dab of super glue at the top and bottom.

Wham bam you're ready to hit the streets and that tome seems much more manageable! See how it slips into your clutch featuring an 18th century scene! Marvellous!

Prints Charming

2010-05-27T11:05:00.001-07:00

So I get a whole load of this fabric and immediately the sun removes his hat and goes off in a huff. At least that gives me time to whip up something jolly in it so that when he returns I can shake my maracas at him and jangle my key covered self about town.

Fashionade Parade

2010-05-24T13:09:00.000-07:00

Look at this likely line up from 1985. They're poised, coiled springs, ready to pop any second for Mr Geldof's charitable juggernaut. BOING.

For someone who is just beginning to take tiny thrusts into collecting it's terribly nice to put a face to the label but I also find it amazing, looking at old mags, how reputations fluctuate. Bodymap (oh how I ache to own Bodymap) versus Jasper Conran, for instance. And both of those against Margaret Howell. And then there are those who simply drop off the radar altogether and whilst they must have been damned desirable in 1985 these days no one knows them from Adam. We don't even need to look as far back as 1985. I was trying to discover more about Christian Wijnants of whom much was said a few years back but now, it seems, he's considered a bit of a damp squib. I guess there are some lessons to be learned (never, ever, do a diffusion for Debenhams - you're dicing with a thousand deaths) but otherwise I'm pleased to just take part - to discover new names who were doing exciting things and who everyone decided to forget.

Wish List Languor

2010-05-19T14:20:00.000-07:00

I can get pretty languorous when it comes to fine items of jolly clothing. I could gaze and paw at them and sigh, and roll around the floor, considering their many merits. I have a feeling I may get a little slack jawed at this weekend's viewing at Kerry Taylor. This is something like a wish list. I'd look frightful in both Gaultier's but pah to your rules for the short and dumpy, that's what I say - pah! And as for how I'd dazzle in those chaps? bloody sublime.

ZZ

2010-05-17T14:50:00.000-07:00

Is everyone on the bandwagon? Everyone's on? Yes? Okay right well I'll just climb on here. Okay okay! Shoo doves shoo! make way! Phew, here I am on this LV world cup wagon.. and thank god we've gotten rid of those doves. Now, there are many reasons to love LV. And many reasons to not like it at all. But here I'd say is a goal (yep yep let's get seasonal) for the former team. Zinedine Zidane (forget those other two extras) with his own ZZ monogrammed luggage. Incroyable. Thank you, Mr Huntley, for the info.

Chambers Made

2010-05-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

In my eyes Lucinda Chambers can really do no wrong. Sure she may seem a little frosty on that snore of an innovation VogueTV but her suped up retro-ish glamour is right up my sartorial alleyway. This month's Vogue features her Far From Heaven shoot. Which sits nicely next to another of her spreads from years ago. There's some heavy motifs, sure, but, like John Travolta said to Samuel L Jackson, it's the little differences.

from Chicago to Paris

2010-05-10T12:08:00.001-07:00

Falling in love with someone dead is always tragic and often rather problematic. Thus it was between Saul Bellow and I. I fell head over heels shortly after opening 'The Adventures of Augie March' only to find, dear me, that dear Mr Bellow departed some years ago. I put away my special fan letter headed paper and dug out my black edged handkerchief. And then raced through the next few hundred pages, the next few novels.

'Humboldt's Gift' is a thick, rich treacle-like novel. You can wade in knee-deep and luxuriate in some really rather sublime sections. Like many Bellow novels 'Humboldt's Gift' charts a turn of the wheel for a well meaning hero. A hero who often seems bound corporeally and split intellectually. Big sweaty men who are racked by anxieties and ravaged by events. Bellow's novels, however, are by no means gloomy - they are drenched in wit, humour and the absurd, even when the prose turns its attention to most serious matters.

So when Charlie Citrine, the celebrated intellectual and protagonist reflects on his decoration by the French he is all self-abasement:

"The only real distinction at this dangerous moment in human history and cosmic development has nothing to do with medals and ribbons. Not to fall asleep is distinguished. Everything else is mere popcorn."

And when he butts up against business he rallies against "pushiness, rapidity, effrontery" stating that chasing profit "compared with the satisfaction of contemplating flowers or of something really serious... was nothing, nothing at all."

There's so much of this contradiction, this humanity in his characters, that the great fleshy things coax you into Mr Bellow's trains of thought and lead you down deeply enjoyable literary garden paths. Having never been to America I do hope that the place is populated by these garrulous Bellowian people with the most fantastic names: Demmie Vonghel, Von Humboldt Fleischer & Charlie Citrine.

And just for the fleshiest characters you can imagine you should go ahead and invest in some Bellow - never mind the fantastic stories, eye-opening observation and rich intellectual content. Go ahead! Treat yourself to something warm and hearty!

As for Therese Raquin. Well, I don't want to say much about Therese Raquin - it was terribly disappointing after Nana. It's quite dead to me. If you're tempted to read it, stop, get Nana instead you lovely francophiles!

Clash of the Bright-Uns

2010-05-05T07:22:00.000-07:00

I have a friend who could name the stylist of any shoot, any magazine, any time. This is a talent I do not posses. I never paid any attention to such things. I chose to believe, instead, that St Sebastian beamed down snazzy combo ideas direct to the brains of, well, fashion people. This may well still be proven the case but I am beginning to recognise who Seb's chosen vessels might be.

This morning I was flicking through Tank Magazine, Spring 04 and came across this jolly pattern crash / clash / bang shoot. This cracklecandy of spreads is the work of God's own Hannah Bhuiya. Now, not for me were posters of the Chippendales when I was a student, ho no, Hannah Bhuiya's Vogue Shopping Diary graced my wall (hence her looking a little scummy around the edges, apologies Hannah, dear).

She's obviously been blessed in some way - look at the diary - Oxfam yields Hermes, YSL, Celine, Alaia and as for Cornucopia? Dior. Uhhuh, those dice be weighted.

So, long story short (you left me paragraphs ago, didn't you dear fickle reader?) here is Hannah B's friendly face plus vintage heavy wardrobe AND her jolly as anything print clash shoot. So excuse me & enjoy whilst I order my St Sebastian icon, patron of charity shopping and dig out the Marimekko.

Stone Cold Hot

2010-04-29T03:32:00.000-07:00

So I like to think I'm pretty happy with the way I look. Sure, I'm short. Sure, I've got short legs. Sure, bad skin. Sure, wide hips..sausage fingers..ample knees..okay I'll stop. For sure I err from all received ideas of perfection in countless ways. But, as a rule, that's fine by me. Life's far too short. Did you read that article in Vogue last year in which Caroline Sieber obsessed over an obviously terrifying 6lbs? The one that went on for about 6 pages? About weighing her wheatgrass shot against her weightloss weigh-in wish fulfillment? It was enough to put me off body envy for life. I have reading to do, stuff to be getting on with, fried goods to be eating - keep your sad old life to yourself Sieber!

So yes, as I say. Feel fine. Generally. And then you see something like this shot of Lara Stone and you think wow-ee some people must have been real goody-two-shoes in their past lives.

Early Bird Special

2010-04-25T10:44:00.001-07:00

So, Tavi turned 14 this week - happy birthday Tavi! 14, gosh. What can I say? As far as I remember 14 - 18 was pure hell. But oh no! Tavi, you'll be fine.. I mean.. good luck. stick with it deary, it's only temporary madness. Gosh, rather you than me.

Anyway, it's good to see she's got ahead of the game with this grey hair thing. Apparently simply everyone's doing it! look, here's that big shiny crazy Daphne Guinness having a march for Giles, she's doing it:

And here's another cool person (looking a little weepy). Yes, yes, looks like she's doing it too:

Of course the old have been doing this for... several seasons.. but I'd ring the trend bell if I were you. Ding Ding!

A trend that surfaced whilst I was reading my Warhol recently. Here's what Andy has to say in his wilfully conversational style:

"I thought that young people had more problems that old people, and I hoped I could last until I was older so that I wouldn't have all these problems. Then I looked around and same that everybody who looked young had young problems and that everybody who looked old had old problems. The "old" problems to me looked easier to take that the "young" problems. So I decided to go gray so nobody would know how old I was and I would look younger to them than how old they thought I was. I would gain a lot by going gray: (1) I would have old problems, which were easier to take than young problems, (2) everyone would be impressed by how young I looked, and (3) I would be relieved of the responsibility of acting young - I could occasionally lapse into eccentricity or senilty and no one would think anything of it because of my gray hair. When you've got gray hair, ever move you make seems "young" and "spry", instead of just being normally active. It's like getting a new talent. So I dyed my hair gray when I was about twenty-three or twenty-four." The Philosophy of Andy Warhol Pg 98.

And for Tavi, at 14, it makes perfect sense. She can now swap her godawful teenage problems (they really are the pits) for the irritations of age such as infrequent bus services and the youth of today. A much more manageable can of worms.

My Friends, Victoria and Albert

2010-04-21T02:58:00.000-07:00

I am so pleased to see that the V&A purchased two of my favourite items from last year's Marit Allen Sale at Kerry Taylor's - this Bassett's Fruit Salad John Kloss marvel and Marit Allen's sublime, I repeat, sublime, John Bates wedding outfit (apologies for small photo).

It gave me a considerable pain to imagine that these two dresses (that I had fingered fervently at the viewing) were going to be owned by (as I imagined) a jammy double barrelled Jemima who would inevitably spill caviar and Bollinger down the fronts before donating them to their nanny. As a UK taxpayer I can now imagine that I own perhaps a couple of the stitches? half a stitch? Well a little anyway, there's some kind of shared ownership there. And that's super, that's marvellous.

Shiny Shiny

2010-04-19T13:46:00.000-07:00

You thought that budget thing was an important document? Or perhaps you've been pouring over some manifestos? Blueprints for the future? Pah! What politician's got the scope on the most important debate coming up in the next few months - the shoe versus the BOOTY? Yes all the big questions are addressed in the committee report of the season - Candy Pratts Price's Style.com Fall Accessory Report.

I've been wearing brocade for day, plus a metallic sweater, plus jewels on my sausage fingers and shiny shoes so I really think Candy would be proud of me for being all over this Divine Excess thing. Of course I can't imagine affording this stellar, star spattered clutch so I'll have to buy some white fabric and some glitter glue. But if, like me, you're a Magpie and if unlike me you've a hoard of shiny coins in your cellar then get yourself on that Givenchy waiting list you gilded lily!

from Zola to Warhola

2010-04-14T06:05:00.000-07:00

So Zola gave me an enormous appetite for all things French. I went out, in my breton stripes and my beret, heading for my local bookshop - there to stock up on Colette, Flaubert, Zola, Stendhal... I popped in the shop on my way for some Gauloises and promptly took up smoking. I had a quick lunch of snails with extra garlic & onion over which I set up a little cinq à sept for later. I stepped out of the cafe at which I lunched warbling Brel and thinking of Baudelaire and ran straight into my friend Cat. Who pressed The Philosophy of Andy Warhol into my hand and said if I didn't read it she'd tell everyone I had just come from Surrey, not the Sorbonne. All over. Here I am from Zola to Warhola. and I have to say, excuse me while I have another Coke Candy Darling, that it's looking rather good..

Ola Zola

2010-04-13T13:36:00.000-07:00

Yes, hello Emile. Sit down whilst I disclose an unsettling fact to these people here: 'Nana', finished yesterday, was my first Zola novel. I know. Beyond credulity, but it is true. Perhaps I shouldn't bother synopsising as you and your neighbour's dog have all read it so instead I'll include Emile's own outline on his central character, the prostitute/actress/courtesan Nana:

"Her character: good-natured above all else. Follows her nature, but never does harm for harm's sake and feels sorry for people. Bird-brain, always thinking of something new, with the craziest whims. Tomorrow doesn't exist. Very merry, very gay. Superstitious, frighted of God. Loves animals and her parents. At first very slovenly, vulgar; then plays the lady and watches herself closely. With that ends up regarding man as a material to exploit, becoming a force of Nature, a ferment of destruction but without meaning to, simply by means of her sex and her strong female odour, destroying everything she approaches and turning society sour just as women having their period turn milk sour. The cunt in all its power; the cunt on an altar, with all the men offering up sacrifices to it. The book has to be the poem of the cunt and the moral will lie in the cunt turning everything sour.

As early as Chapter One I show the whole audience captivated and worshipping; study the women and the men in front of that supreme apparition of the cunt. On top of all that, Nana eats up gold, swallows every sort of wealth; the most extravagant tastes, the most frightful waste. She instinctively makes a rush pleasures and possessions. Everything she devours; she eats up what people are earning around her in industry, on the stock exchange, in high positions, in everything that pays. And she leaves nothing but ashes. In short a real whore - Don't make her witty, which would be a mistake; she is nothing but flesh, but flesh in all its beauty. And, I repeat, a good-natured girl."

Yes, there's alot to chow down on just there, isn't there? I won't even bother making any feminist comment. I think you get the jist of the big idea. On reading you can dissociate this focus on joyless and complete consumption from notions of the female but I can also understand the use of the prostitute as symbol and myth - the locus of bottomless desires.

The book is beautifully formed around distinct episodes which themselves fall into an easy symmetry of two halves. This is no dry novel of ideas either. The episodes are beautifully observed with real life peeking around the curtain of fiction. One of my favourite moments is when Nana, eager to rush to bed with a new lover, dispenses with the fuss of undoing her hair and simply tips her head over the sink and shakes out the pins with her fingers, the golden things tinkle and glitter down and the chapter closes. I have no doubt that Zola saw this very action with his very eyes and set it down here, a moment held in literary amber.

Had you heard Zola was master of the crowd scene? I had. And I had thought to myself that I had never yet read a novel and longed for a good crowd scene. Having read Nana I can only say that Zola does a Seriously Mean Crowd Scene. And I guess you'll just have to read it for yourself because I simply can't quite place what he does with opening night at the theatre and a day at the races that's so magnificent, but it is pretty magnificent. I wanted to say that it's like Hogarth's 'Gin Lane', but more vivid, and that Zola does so much more than little black lines etched on paper but - dear me - letters are little black lines on paper, aren't they? Well it's terribly vivid and smelly and colourful despite the whole thing being little black lines on paper.

Anyway. Please do read it - I'm sure there's something for everyone: solid ideas, beautiful form, a good story, marvellous language as well as every type of sex.

P.S. FASHION NOTES: This is Books AND Dresses, after all. 1) When at the races wear a flamboyant dress inspired by jockey's uniforms, preferably in your horse's colours 2) Diamonds, diamonds, diamonds. And a bit of Serious Lace. 3) No one minds WHAT you do, as long as you are at the very height of fashion. 4) You don't care what you wear, when you're in love. 5) Big skirts = good for hiding small lovers

2005 Vintage

2010-04-08T03:24:00.000-07:00

Does excessive chocolate consumption impair scanning abilities? I think we can only assume yes. Anyway please do ignore my wonky sides and enjoy this little bundle from a 2005 I-D. This is how I aspire to wear vintage: a honed jumble, sequins and fringes, refined bits & bobs. I should mention that this was a catwalk report shoot but Jamie Surman's styling has elevated these shots to something altogether more interesting and well, quite practical. Here are the shiny new shoes and box fresh dresses rubbing shoulder pads with things that have already set up happy home in your wardrobe. Oh yes it's all rather refreshing. Not least when trying to whip your Springtime things into some kind of coherent shape. One thing that is certain, CERTAIN, is that if I had that Rifat Ozbek jacket all my worldly problems would be solved.

Dear Evelyn

2010-03-31T06:58:00.000-07:00

Just thinking of Summer again and remembered this picture of Richard Avedon and Evelyn Franklin. My Cecil Beaton portraits book falls open at this page each time I open it.

I'm having my hair cut tomorrow and wish I could have Evelyn's look. It's a 'do that's fallen out of the fashion tree an hit every sub-branch of respectability on it's way to the dark forest floor of Nowhere. Not out of fashion, just... gone.

The only people I've seen on the street with this kind of Hollywood crop are those who re-enact vintage looks from head to toe, every day. I love, love, love these wonderful women. As someone who is unutterably lazy and disgustingly flakey I have serious admiration for these ladies who do one thing, perfectly - BBC continuity team perfectly. As they pass I tend to dip my head in grubby shame and dream of looking like Evelyn. With a pug called Marjorie.

Twin Town

2010-03-29T14:51:00.000-07:00

Just dusting off my Summer things (apparently I'm repulsively late in making this transition) and out popped my utterly beloved bubblegum pink COS twinset. I love the twin set. Love it. Nothing better for British Summertime.
The dark cloud on my twin set scene is Pringle's current 'twin set project', I assume you've seen the results? Something monstrous in collaboration with Julien David & Colette and a strange spray painted beast that's currently languishing on the Outnet. Hundreds of years of making twin sets and they chuck their cashmere cord knit baby out with the fuddy-duddy bath water. It could have been so wonderful, the modern twin set, but it's all gone so very, sadly wrong.

From Turgenev to Calvino

2010-03-26T12:26:00.001-07:00

Turgenev to Calvino. I know, it's a really hideous edition of the Calvino. I doubt, however, it'll last long. The Turgenev was wonderful. Earthy vignettes, full of the olfactory pleasures of the outdoors. Just the thing for when you've been up to your elbows in dirt and are cheering all the buds and blossoms on.

Ad-alicious

2010-03-22T05:53:00.000-07:00

On Friday Style Bubble drew attention to an online exhibition of the work of David James, art director at Prada for many a moon. Of course I had no idea who David James was, but, turns out I've been a honking fan for just ages. Ads are tough, they try to sell you things and I'm all like, no no, I'm sensible, I shan't be seduced by your golden goose until sometimes, these geese come along (gosh must drop this goose metaphor by the end of the sentence) and you say fine, put the thing on my credit card and do you have a goose carrying case with that? Such has been the way with most Prada / Miu Miu ads since I started loving the dresses. Every single one is a woman I want to be, wearing finery I would jump through a thousand hoops to own.

Of course there's also ads that don't even bother much with the clothes, just shove something marvellous in front of your nose and there, you're sold. A few years ago Moschino ran just such a campaign and really who wouldn't want to be one of these girls?!

It seems my little selection oscillates between all the fun of the fair (Maggie in Miu Miu, with a drill, a drill! / Moschino) and a bookish sensibility (Prada). But this is called books & dresses, you're here for both.

And if you thought ads were nonsense that could be thrown together by anyone look what I found on the back of one of the Pradas - SJP in Pretty Khakis. You'd have to go a long way to find a worse advert, for a more nauseating product. Respect where respect is due, please.

Fandom

2010-03-17T08:51:00.000-07:00

Fan. Not a word oft-used in the book realm (or the dress one for that matter). It's a little bit too stuffing your face with processed meats whilst wearing a big foam finger and honking an air horn. Not the behaviour, I imagine, of those setting off to their local bookseller for Ian McEwan's latest when it hits shelves tomorrow. But of McEwan I am a fan, honk honk.
It's not really about the man's skill, his obvious and significant powers, it's gone too far for such metered and intelligent respect. It's not even about his significance in a post-Booker literary scene with all its bells & whistles. For me the name is enough; if it's on the packet, I'll buy it. Even if he were to turn his hand to pasta sauce, that would be me, at the back there, reading the new McEwan with the new McEwan Arrabiata down my front. Shameful. For someone who loves fiction it's shameful.
My only defence was that Enduring Love was what began my heavy fiction habit. It was my A-Level text and, until then, I'd had no idea that literature could be so utterly engrossing, complex and sophisticated. I went home and used my parents' money to buy four more novels for which I got into some horrible trouble. But, whilst I've read much, much more since then I still judge the rush I get from a good read against the excitement I first found when I picked up Enduring Love.
So, sound those horns for your authors! Knit a scarf bearing their names! Have a tattoo of their face on your forearm! and let's get together soon to work on that chant, yeah?

Clean Cut Winner

2010-03-15T07:06:00.000-07:00

My new Norman Parkinson book is absolutely stuffed to the gills with beautiful images and magnificent clothes. At the moment I'm mostly drawn to the impeccably cut, simpler garments. Looking at my wardrobe I can see there's been a move towards something a little more pared down; the forties, fifties and seventies patterns have been stored and the items I'm coming back to day after day are sixties shifts, a nineties Helmut Lang duvet suit & new frocks from Cos. I've always considered myself a bit of a magpie who'll pick up something busy and shiny over something plain and clean any day of the week but you know what? The evidence all suggests that this is simply not true. Of course, by next week I expect it'll be all change (there's a beautiful Janice Wainwright frock wending its way to me that's far from sedate) but that's what's simply lovely about clothes, there's a garment for every whim.

At the Library

2010-03-11T12:12:00.001-08:00

I've not visited the central library for a long time, not since I was a pre-pubescent be-spectacled creature who happily wore acrylic fleece. It was my first Big Library and one of the first places I was allowed to visit unsupervised. It has reposed in my imagination as a dark, labyrinthine place of peculiar strangers and pungent old folks. Recently I happened across these postcards of the place in a local shop. They must have been rotating round and round on their funny little carousel, corners browning and curling, since 1975. I love the interior picture - those nice men and women just popped over from Marks & Spencer and have found themselves reading The Daily Mail in space.

The postcard's legend reads: 'Postcards of Today: Series Two. Sutton Central Library, a modern subject departmentalised library, was opened in December 1975. The top floor includes the Humanities and Commerce, Science and Technology departments. In the foreground the comfortable seating of the browsing area can be seen.'
How proud we were! That top floor!

Needless to say it looks very different now, far less optimistic. All corners in which mischief was made have been eliminated, replaced by circular shelving and row after row of PCs. There are very few actual books left. Those that have avoided ejection are sorted into colour blocks, a dewey decimal system for the numerically dyslexic. Still, there were some heartening sights: an older gentleman snoozing and an elderly lady photocopying her hand were two. The book I ordered (from a lovely librarian called Joan) will be coming from one of the London libraries where the silence is a little snooty and you hope very much not to have the wrong book in your pile. Here, however, in the Central Library I could read god-awful ghost written autobios in Orange 1 before retiring to Maroon 3 for forty winks. Central Library, your features may have changed but you've still charms a-plenty.

Stormin' Norman

2010-03-08T14:23:00.000-08:00

Fingers crossed my Norman Parkinson book will be arriving tomorrow morning. For now this is Vogue August 1966. Zing zing zap snap!

All Change Please

2010-03-08T08:02:00.000-08:00

From Isherwood to Flaubert. I find book blogs really quite exhausting - there's so much information. I'm never be able to catch up with the literature before the discussion moves to another tome that I'm yet to hear of. Phew! So, here's a short but sweet update on my novel change over (well a novella to short stories, you pedants - I'm feeling lazy). My legion of twit-ees will know I'm also reading Maria Loh's 'Titian Remade' from the non-fiction side of my bookshelf. They will also know it's a large object and I don't think I can jam it into my scanner for you - apologies. It has a lovely Titian and a lovely Padovanino on it. I'd certainly buy it, if I were you. Try your local bookseller & your local library before you do a deal with the behemoth.

Archive Me Happy

2010-03-05T04:42:00.000-08:00

Just something super quick from elsewhere. Style Rookie posted snaps from her visit to the fashion archive of the Art Institute. If I worked there I think I'd spend all day eating compulsively under the desk, unable to emerge under the pressure of a thousand genius minds. Franco Moschino's make-your-own-dress kit, intended for his nearest & dearest, is a Serious Thing - click, and take a look!

Vivat REX

2010-03-05T04:03:00.000-08:00

My legion of followers on twitter will know the trepidation with which I recently approached a new cobbler. This move was not a matter of choice but necessity after my local cobbler (of many, many years) finally shut shop. Rex was a cobbler like no other; Rex talked to the dead. Stopping for a chat when collecting your order could often turn into in a quick conflab with his Norse spirit guide (a long time passed) or another of those on the Other Side with whom he was in regular and close contact. It could be quite terrifying to hear but Rex was a sweet man and I miss him and his little shop on the Green. I hope that, wherever he is, Rex is far from alone.

Straight & Narrow

2010-03-01T09:49:00.000-08:00

Back from a holiday during which I took every chance to search for this perfect long skirt that I've been thinking of. It seems that it's a rather elusive item. Problem compounded by the following Mario Testino shoot from Vogue, August 1996. The accompanying article strikes a cautionary note for the short and thick hipped (yes, yes that's me) but needless to say I heed not this warning and continue my search. I like this friendly looking shoot - 90s does 70s for me in the 10s.

An Old Wrinkly Cheap Date

2010-02-15T12:59:00.000-08:00

I started keeping a fashion scrapbook when, as a teenager, my mother took umbrage at the tonnage of magazine quietly accumulating in my bedroom. The scrapbook was my way to keep what I wanted without having to leave home at 14 over irreconcilable differences and these days I remain ruthless with my monthlies. I look at the books often and just came across this spread featuring Bay Garnett from Vogue a fair few years back. I remember thinking that I would never want a long maxi-ish skirt as sported by Bay but lo! what's this? All I can now think about is this skirt.

The spread got me thinking about Cheap Date Magazine. I only discovered it at the last issue (which I bought for myself and several friends) which I must have read a hundred times. It was the best magazine I had come across and I cannot believe that it's disappeared from my shelves. Recently I've become seriously disillusioned with shoots and whole magazines that seem stuffed full of smutty and cynical snaps. Last week, at the magazine I work at, a shoot came in that was praised for looking like a soft porn movie - and sadly it really did. What was great about Cheap Date was it was seriously fun and felt like it had been written by a gaggle of drunk big sisters who had just fallen out of a wardrobe. Underarm wigs, charity shops, the chubby - all included. It couldn't have made the most heinous hardcore pornography look smutty. There is nothing like it now and I miss it.

Unfortunately the only copy I can find for sale is £35 on Ebay and in these hard times I can't quite shell out. The book of the mag is, however, available for £9 on Amazon and there's a few sites that reminisce about the good old days of Cheap Date. Other than that I'm hoping for some charity shop luck and that Bay Garnett & Kira Jolliffe hit the big bucks and get the presses rolling once more. I myself could donate at least £10!

Cheap links...
Public Personae for scans & more yearning
Media Bistro for Q&A with Bay Garnett
Kira Jolliffe's Website
Charlotte Cooper.net for another interview with Bay & Kira
AND the now very defunct Cheap Date site, to download a poster that's a comforting 6yrs out of date

Paradise Found

2010-02-04T01:59:00.000-08:00

If you have not lived or visited Britain (in deepest off season) you cannot quite imagine the draining dreariness that is a miserable, slate grey, murky and damp February day. Yesterday was once such day. The fog was thick, rain fell and the cold crept through the seams in your trousers. Variety was the only way to clatter on through this slow purgatory - off we drove to Brighton.

Now, generally, the seaside is not, absolutely not, where you want to be on one of these days but we weren't there for candyfloss and a quick dip. We were there for Snooper's Paradise. Yes, Paradise, with a capital P on a hellish afternoon. There are over 90 stalls of secondhand nonsense in this covered bric-a-brac bower. I won't pretend that it's warm and cosy (it's really not) but you won't notice as you sift through books and dresses and piles of old photos and negotiate your way between furniture, stacks of LPs and plain old oddities. Do not expect service but keep on collecting what you want before taking it to the central counter - where I always find myself wondering at the odd assortment of items I have accumulated.

I'm sorry for the grainy snaps but here are two small corners of this Paradise for the Snooper - or what my boyfriend might term a Junk Accumulator - but what I might refer to as a Collector of Discerning and Superior Taste.

Directions to Snoopers

Givenchy Stripes Again

2010-01-29T08:45:00.001-08:00

After lusting over the stripy Bowie-inspired jackets at Michael Clark Company's new production last year I am pleased to be able to lust after Givenchy's offering on the same theme. Stripe a light! It's the same jacket all over again! Of course it might be a little better for my health if I could convince myself to dribble over the Zara Givenchy copy but it's not a patch on the real thing. And the real Givenchy isn't quite as good as the pit-vented originals from the dance show. And what could be finer than the Ur-jacket - Bowie's very own? Excuse me whilst I undertake several levels of stripe strife.

Trump Suit

2010-01-29T08:35:00.001-08:00

I adore a suit. Unfortunately, due to some shoddy genes, I don't have the stature for a trouser suit but I've many (vintage and new) skirt and dress suits. My only problem is avoiding a too dressed up look. In this shot Birkin makes the suit louche and marvellous. I don't think it's just the shocking hem height but the hair and the smile and the ease. Ease in a suit is no easy feat and something that men are far better at than women but I promise to try better for that breezy attitude and loose styling that makes Birkin's combo a winner. Never again will I frown in a suit. Never. Not once. Really.

Dresses from British Pathe

2010-01-15T04:52:00.000-08:00

Your browser does not support iframes.

On attempting to discover more about London stitcher Charles Creed I stumbled across British Pathe's super online archive of footage. You can find high society 'mannequin parades' of the 50s, Yves Saint Laurent meeting Princess Margaret, Ossie Clark shows and much more!

Don't miss the Digby Morton 'scabbard' umbrella in 'She Walks in Beauty'. Ridiculously practical. Every Britisher needs one.

www.britishpathe.com

Michael Clark Company

2009-11-14T08:28:00.000-08:00

Last week I went to Michael Clark Company's New Work at the Barbican and was utterly blown away. I sat there like one of those wolves in the cartoons - you know the ones? They see a hot lady wolf and hit themselves over the head with a hammer and dribble, whilst their eyes pop out? Well that was me in row C. Dribbling! And whilst you can't take anything away from Michael Clark and his astoundingly merry troupe the costumes were superb. Here, I've taken a scan from the programme, have a look:

Rather grand, non? This pair marched on to the beat of Jean Genie, en pointe, arms around one another. The jackets are fantastic - a take on Bowie's own:

Other highlights were a (head and face covering) glitterball bodysuit and a set of closely cropped black leather bomber jackets. All costumes were the creation of Stevie Stewart, renowned for being one half of the much loved label Bodymap and a real fashion force. The clothes for New Work are such wonderful, pared down, practical and evocative ensembles - everything working costumes ought to be. Of course still photos won't get you anywhere - go to the sublime show and see the shocking/superb/sensational dancers perform in this most wonderful workwear...

Michael Clark Company : http://www.michaelclarkcompany.com/
Barbican : http://www.barbican.org.uk/
More on Bodymap and S. Stewart from V Magazine: http://www.vmagazine.com/fashion_article.php?n=1252
Thanks to Emma Peel Pants, from whom I have stolen the Bowie snap (and who runs a great online vintage boutique): http://emmapeelpants.blogspot.com/

Literature is a dangerous occupation

2009-10-15T04:27:00.000-07:00

I have just finished the above. After reading The Savage Detectives and Last Evenings on Earth I decided that I had to ration my intake of Bolaño, due to its limited supply. When this edition was half price, however, I felt that really I had to read on. Not having the intellectual or literary capacity to discuss such a book it must suffice to say it earned its place on my top shelf in less than 50 pages. Far from the grander themes it is Bolaño's prose that delights me. At once it is spare, hollow, holey even and at the next densely woven, intricate - a challenge through which to squeeze your larger parts. It is a contrast between claustro- and agro- phobic prose. Both are tricky, worrying and frankly, give me the creeps - joyous, upsetting, creeps.

On an entirely different (and spurious) note Picador's covers are atrocious. 'The Savage Detectives' was also a monstrosity - it looked like a travel guide published by Lidl - I was hoping for better with 2666. Alas, alack, non.

Ruff Love

2009-10-12T07:29:00.000-07:00

Today I bought a book on 1980s fashion's love affair with poorly illustrated History textbooks called 'The Historical Mode, Fashion and Art in the 1980s'. In amongst pictures of funny ladies dressed as mummies and Christy Turlington as a C13th pauper were some super shots of rather exciting items such as the above Moschino from A/W 88/89. I'm simply crazy about ruffs at the moment - can't get enough of them!! I guess I've never worn one but think about it ALL the time, well most of the time - often at least.

This little confection, above, from Balenciaga's recent resort collection really set my bell ringing. I should simply die for such a ruff. Of course some might baulk at taking inspiration from fat old Tudors but ruffs come in all sorts of styles so if you want to be 21st Century - there's a ruff for you. In fact, here it is, right there, below!