I've moved on...
...to a different domain. Why, what were you thinking? The truth is, I just woke up one day and decided it's time for a change—a metamorphosis, if you will; or, in layman's terms, if Britney can shave her head, then maybe so can I? Nevertheless, it's been a rather handsome 10 years of talking to you, and thank you for putting up with all my moodswings and terrible dad jokes. Fear not! The hormonal imbalance and jokes are more terrible on CUBICLE, see you there.
Coat – Boden ICONS. Belt – Stella McCartney. Watch – Larsson & Jennings. Neacklace – Louis Vuitton. Boots – Kurt Geiger.

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NYFW was to me, like Ocean’s Eleven was to Brad Pitt: If you look closely, he is chomping on something nearly every scene he’s in, be it tacos or a shrimp cocktail. At one point Simon yelled WOMAN WOULD YOU TAKE YOUR HANDS OUT OF THE PRINGLES TUBE from across the street, and a whole gaggle of tourists got incredibly confused as to why a German man was supposedly screaming at them (some did yank their hands out of their pockets in shock). Trouble is, I can’t seem to control my excitement for the big AMERICA, simply due to having grown up in a watered-down Eastern European version (90’s Poland) of it all, dreaming of Tootsie Rolls and Pepsi floats. The irony is that I packed a lot of pieces from the Boden ICONS collection, for instance this coat and skirt below, which both have a very distinct British heritage look to it that I absolutely adore, but now that I think of it, I may have walked around New York looking like a crazy Asian lady/Royal Horseguard scraping chocolate off Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups with my front teeth on the street corner. Super attractive.

In Partnership with Boden

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…is that a Pringles tube in my pocket or am I just happy to see you?
Shirt – Boden. Skirt – Boden ICONS. Jeans – Marques’Almedia. Shoes – Coach. Bag – Louis Vuitton. Bracelet – X Jewellery. Watch – Larsson & Jennings.

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Blouse & Bag – Chloe. Skirt – Karen Millen. Bracelet – Miansai. Watch – Larsson & Jennings

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A video diary: the first day of London Fashion Week

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Rewind, play.
A Shopstyle x Harrods video, produced by The Apartment

As you can see, I make a brilliant habit of dropping my cool like a hot potato whenever a camera is shoved in my face. I mean, slow-dancing with food and suggesting a celebrity threesome is, really, any old day in the life of this insane chipmunk, but no one’s ever successfully recorded it so… yes, let’s report this cool lost. (Although, I suppose one can argue that I never had any cool to begin with.)

Weeks before the ‘fashion’ baton was handed over to London, I sat down with team Apartment, Shopstyle, and Harrods, in the plans of animating a typical London Fashion Week day for me. Many a scenario we had mapped out: breakfasts, fittings, shows, re-sees, melt-downs on account of London traffic and even a spot of work (!). But me being me, famously sporting a rather potent gravitational field of tomfoolery, on the actual day of the shoot we ended up rewriting the agenda (on the back of a Pret bag, with old eyeliner found at the bottom of my bag), and indulged all kinds of tangents… like running into the nearest McDonalds to use the loo and coming out with a box of McNuggets. In Balmain. (Shhh don’t tell Harrods) In the end though, I do think it turned out to be a more natural rendition of what a LFW day looks like every season after season: the mad conflict of schedules vs. spontaneity, with snacks and gossip at the Apartment in between it all.

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Jacket – Balmain.

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Jacket – Chloe . Bag – Marni. Stole – ASOS. Trousers – Zara. Shoes – Gianvito Rossi.

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Photos by Kris Atomic, Simon Schmidt and Shini Park. In Collaboration with Shopstyle.

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Top – Dagmar

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White trousers – Gap

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Leather Jacket – Francis Leon. Top – Dagmar. White linen trousers – Gap. Shoes – Kurt Geiger. Bag – ZAC Zac Posen

This is me attempting reverse psychology with a pair of white trousers after years of championing the ‘bib’ solution (i.e dark/patterned clothing) which caters to my infamous Flying Food eating technique. For example, one could tell that I ate recently by the fact that there’s food on my husband’s clothes (Babe try a bite of this, OOPS SORRY = a spoonload of pasta on his lap). A pair of white linen trousers from Gap should in theory overload this chipmunk brain’s computing powers and bring balance to the universe… (?) But if that’s not the case then I’ll switch to treating it as a blank canvas and Jackson Pollock on it throughout the day with breakfast, lunch and dinner – heck, it should still go with that chromosome-y Dagmar top in either scenario. Speaking of Dagmar, it’s one of my favourite Scandi brands that I’ve had to make pen-pals (aka potential shopping legs) in Stockholm for, but just the other week I found out that they’re stocked at Harvey Nichols and Harrods… D’OH. Guess I ought to write goodbye letters to those kids now…

On another note, I’m very glad to be back doing another style series with Gap for the Styld.by platform with a few of my favourite white pieces from their summer new-ins. Pieces also to be known hereon as guineapigs on which my reverse-psychology theory will be tested… All I can say now is: check back later for my debut art piece of a white dress splattered with coffee and curry – we’ll probably throw an opening gala with champagne and all that.

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Top – Stylenanda (Similar). Skirt – Mango (similar). Heels – Gianvito Rossi (Similar). Bag – Kurt Geiger (Similar). Rings – THPSHOP. Watch – Larsson & Jennings. Sunglasses – Karen Walker. Scarf – Louis Vuitton.

Apologies if today this post landed in your RSS reader/Bloglovin’ feed and looked like one hot mess laced with crushed Viagra. Something had launched the draft for this post from the back-end without my consent and I’ve been dousing my computer with bug-spray this whole morning. At this point I’m not too sure what’s caused it, but if it’s a hacker I’d like them to get in touch because I really need some friends. We can order pizza and watch the Sex & the City? or play XBox and throw eggs at passing cars – whatever you want. Dear readers, as a general rule if you see a link that’s does not start with ‘http://parkncu.be’, please try not to click it, and if a blogpost is not accompanied by a blob of rant here + some kind of heads-up  on social media, then it’s an unauthorized post. If you could simply drop a line on Twitter or Facebook I’ll do my best to fix it (with bugspray and a mosquito nets). Although, if the background is black with ‘Di$ S1te H4Z bEEn HAckeD B1Tchez’ flashing in neon green, then most probably I’m drunk on nail polish, or my site’s been compromised and I need some wizardly assistance. Both exciting.

Shot at the Barbican Centre, which may be a perfect location to shoot theatre version of 50 Shades of Grey meets Planet of the Apes if there ever was to be one. Definitely underrated as a destination within London, this is brutalist architecture at its finest (if that’s not an oxymoron, I don’t know what is). Make sure to check out the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition; or the Food Hall, if you’re more like me. Thank you Charlie for helping with the outfit shots!

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Hotel Amour

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‘Astralis’ exhibit at Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton

Børre Sæthre – Untitled (Arches of Solaris)

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Jean-luc Favero – Stag-Transformed

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Chloe Piene – Untitled (CB)

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Dome-Vanity by Charley Case

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Four Angels by Siobhan Hapaska

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Damien Deroubaix – Astralis; Life; Death; South of Heaven; Time; Messaiah

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Myriam Mechita

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Art Oriente Objet – Not Yet

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Rina Banerjee – A Mad Woman

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Cape – LV. Jeans – MiH Jeans. Heels – Kurt Geiger. Bag – LV Sophia Coppola. Luggage – LV. Watch – Daniel Wellington. Rings – Monica Vinader.

Paris and I got along famously as we reunited under the blessing of Louis Vuitton for a 24-hour-long fling in the middle of February, which was in fact a mere 2 days before the beginning of London Fashion Week and naturally a perfect escape before the hurdle. We arrived late morning to celebrate LV’s latest artist collaboration that once again brings the street onto silk – this time with Andre B and his beloved Mr A character (who I’m sure Parisians will have seen spray-sketched in many crevices around the city), tagged in zingy pink on a massive, soft shawl (more pics of this later).We set up camp in Hotel Amour – owned also by Andre (alongside the Le Baron clubs for those still unfamiliar), counted the number of explicit photos that were hanging in each of our rooms (three in mine, enough to get this old lady excited) and waited for dinner with the man himself.

Speaking of escape, I had a couple hours to burn before dinner and decided it was good a time as any to visit the Espace Culturel atop the LV flagship store on Champs Élysées. I don’t always have good ideas, so this one gets a special mention, because it’s definitely a must-go when in Paris. The current exhibit, ‘Astralis’ (available until May 11), brings together twelve artists that explore concepts behind celestial, elusive, and otherworldly themes prompting visitors to temporarily escape from their minds/bodies. Even numpties like me will understand and appreciate the curation, which – I won’t lie – is occasionally chilling/creepy. But then again I find the lack of nutella in the pantry chilling/creepy, so.

Many thanks to LV for the short but sweet journey.