Icy Christmas

 

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

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

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

Here is New York

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

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

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

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

Woven

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

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

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

Image via Muir Blog

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

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

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

 1.    2.    3.    4.    5.

Nightlife

   

 

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

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

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

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

Seascape

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Restored

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

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

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

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

Book Guilt

Photograph by marcinéma via Book Lovers Never Go to Bed Alone

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

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

By apozapox

By Azrasta

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

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

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.

Going Gatsby

Stills from 'The Great Gatsby' (1974)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Le Petit Prince

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The September Issue

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

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

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

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

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

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