What to wear on spectacularly dreary Autumn days is a point to ponder. In times of sartorial uncertainty (and when I need to smile) I consult my homemade book of fashion maxims written by yours truly, c. 15 years ago. It tells me: ‘Grey weather does not mean we forgo style’. Not a greatly poetic line, but we’ll take it, as it’s certainly workable.
When White Stuff asked me if I fancied picking a few pieces following my visit to their new Guildford store, I swooned with joy at the opportunity to work a little style into a grey November Sunday!
Every so often a shop opening attracts my attention, like the sound of a champagne cork popping in the next room, or a bright pullulating firework in the distance.
There is nothing tentative about this perfume. It’s like hosting a party at your pulse points. Plucky notes include ginseng (so uplifting, very important for November), a fresh zing from aloe vera and an almost woody horsetail trail that synergize into a striking and energetic scent.
I feel like an excitable gazelle clutching my copy of ‘More Letters of Note’: a beautiful book bursting with letters from favourite writers like Katherine Mansfield, Henry James and Sylvia Plath; a message from actor Richard Burton to Elizabeth Taylor; a curious note from Mozart to his wife Marianne… and that’s just for starters!
If catwalk shows at London Fashion Week are displays of theatrical brilliance (big, dynamic, buzzing), then a look round the Designer Showrooms at Brewer Street offers a chance to observe fashion from the perspective of visitor in a museum exhibition: a calmer, more serene space for (deep) sartorial contemplation.
I often think of fashion as a little bit like an excitable, blithe butterfly flitting across a meadow: so very thrilling to track and plot its unexpected turns in a distractingly beautiful milieu. And an opportunity to be one of the first to see Spring / Summer 2016 lead butterflies was not to be missed!
^ This is the world’s most fashionable car park (the new ‘concept’ meadow). From today until Tuesday, the NCP car park in Brewer Street in Soho will host London Fashion Week.
