Little World

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

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

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.