RECONFIGURE

The colour of April, a deep, muted fuchsia. Pure on the surface and dirty by the second coating. She's a gentlewoman but she's no demure lady. Doused in Eau Duelle with base notes of Bourbon vanilla, cold spices and sensual black frankincense. Suited, she dances mid-afternoon in her office, with Madonna in mind. Everybody come on, dance and sing. Stars and stripes. Living in a material world. Everything's political. Make and express how you feel. 

Annie Vincent Gentlewoman

Diane Keaten

A FRIEND OF MINE

We found ourselves in a stretch of separation spanning countries and years. She flew in from Tel Aviv, tinier than I remember, one of my nearest and dearest. We used to live in each other's pockets. A need for fun and a last minute decision led to an anticipation that eventually broke into a run, hug and sob. Still a Beatles fan, it went a little something like this...

Underneath the blue suburban skies, it's in my ears and in my eyes. We lived beneath the waves. And the band begins to play. It looks as though they're here to stay. I believe in yesterday. It came suddenly. Sitting in an English garden waiting for the sun. When I was younger so much younger than today. You were only waiting for this moment to arrive. Look around. I've seen that road before. The clouds will be a daisy chain. Images of broken light, sounds of laughter. I'm going to Strawberry Fields, it calls me on.

The Gentlewoman

The Beatles 

JUST PEACHY

 

Just bought the La Collectioneuse poster by Hans Hillmann. Couldn't find the original but I'd rather have a print than not have it at all. It's all pretty retro in washed out hues but then that's nothing new to these pages. 

NO ONE LIKE KATE

What exactly is it about Kate Moss? Kate is a good name and I think perhaps that's where it starts. Keith Richards once said of Moss, "For a bad girl, she's always been very well behaved." There's no one else like her and there probably won't be anyone else like her again. I have a fierce loyalty of Kate, someone I don't know and someone I know next to nothing about. This loyalty of mine most recently won out when choosing to buy the Kate Moss cover of LOVE magazine over Cara Delevingne cover. Just a small example. 

Some may say she's done but there's just no replacing Moss. And despite withholding interviews throughout her career, it feels like I do in fact know her. I suppose we all feel like that when you see an image of her. It's so intimate you might assume that you do. Her silence and refusal to explain allowed us to create our own story. If you missed it, like I did, this Vanity Fair article gives a rare insight into the elusive Moss. It's worth every one of the six page read. 

THE SENSE OF IT

Fashion is difficult to explain, and often a single picture does it better than a whole fashion show. I think there is no style without fashion, and no proper fashion without style. Unfortunately, there isn't always style in real fashion. Actually, fashion isn't something you can buy, you need to have the sense of it, and most people don’t.

Fashion and elegance are somewhat similar to “chic”: you have it, or you don’t. It’s very difficult to learn how to have it, but you can learn how to avoid mistakes. Elegance is quite close to “chic”: first of all, it is all about heart and spirit. Fashion comes next. And in my case, all of that comes from my father. He taught me how to understand the spirit of elegance, and not the materiality of it. 

-Carine Roitfeld, AnOther magazine 

Nitty Gritty

DISENGAGE

And with bated breath. To release from something that holds fast, connects or entangles. To detach, free, loosen, separate, disassociate, extricate or abstract. It's soon Spring and it calls for it. Let the rain wash down the filthy streets and remove your layers.

LOVE magazine, Edie Campbell by Angelo Pannetta.

APC journal

AS FAR AS ROMANCE GOES

Valentino. The ladies have arrived. 

style.com

PENCHANT

This is a life of illusion. Truth, beauty and a picture of you. 

EDGE OF SEVENTEEN

 

Vintage lace, worn amongst the shadow of the palms with a cigarette in hand, like the white winged dove. In tan suede Saharinennes, Le smoking, mousselines and pussy bows guarded by a wide-brimmed hat. Sensing the occasion a balmy south wind blew through, the salt heavily inhaled. From under soft bangs views of sherbet resonated the nightfall. In jasmine and spicy Neroli she was on the edge of seventeen. For a moment she was the girl she would become. And nothing else mattered. 

Badlands

Bernadette Pascua of Decade

Stevie Nicks

Style.com- Tim Blanks

NOTHING MAJOR

Carven's Pre-Fall 2013. If this is what French insouciance smells like then I'll take a few bottles. Isabelle Adjani's character Stella in the 1976 Roman Polanski thriller The Tenant was Guillaume Henry's muse in creating a collection of effortlessly structured silhouette's. With an irreverent bohemian spirit, the Carven girl took a bookish turn in shaggy Mongolian fur coats, cropped skirt suits with sculpted hems, high-collared sweaters and dresses, thigh-high rib tights, iridescent disco-clad heels and oversized glasses. All this in the unexpected combinations of camel and tomato, sky-blue and mint along with a mottled green and rust print and metallic lizard-green leather, evoking an authentic vintage mood. The graphic collage print was inspired by Jacques Villeglé who designed Françoise Hardy's album covers.

"She's someone who might work or study Les Beaux Arts...she likes to collage textures,  prints and colour." - Guillaume Henry.

What I wouldn't do.


Vogue
Style.com