Que pasa, Barcelona!

Arc de Triomf

White skirt – Mango. Frill bra-let – Topshop. Check shirt – Motel Rocks (similar). Heels – Mango. Pyramid leather cuff – Mango. Rose-gold watch – Guess. Clutch – Kurt Geiger Dino.

This is my seventh year in London and I have a feeling I just may have crossed over to the dark side sometime in the past year or so. The dark side where everything is blown out of proportion, that is, most especially the weather: where basically, anything other than overcast, dull skies is considered a gift from the apocalypse. So now I’ve come to accept that a bit of wind and rain is a HURRICANE, a bit of snow a SNOWSTORM, and hot-dang it’s sunny out, there must be SCORPIONS lurking outside the door. Any reason to cancel work and stay in bed with tea… it’s quite clever actually. I noticed this though, only as I was packing for Barcelona, because it seems I had exaggerated SPAIN in my brain and packed a summer vacation wardrobe. I really should have stuck my arm out the window, i.e Googled, and learnt that autumn in Barcelona is actually a slightly warmer version of autumn in London – definitely not bikini top and straw hat weather. Good thing there were clothes a-plenty at the Mango DIY workshops, because apparently a denim shirt and boyfriend jeans a great pair of long-johns make. Enough about me, Barcelona: what a beauty! While not my first time in Spain, it was my first time in the city and hence the region of Catalonia, and once again despite my exaggerated image of hammocks-and-palm-trees Spain, it was quite the contrary. The Barcelona I found, was a true West-Europa metropolitan city, bustling with professionals shuffling by busily with their heads low, or with tourists that walk with their heads generally fixed on a second floor level, Carrie (travel buddy) and self included in the latter. You won’t believe how many photos of beautiful balconies and building detailing I came home with. The city is rich in architectural history: Gaudi to the famous Gothic quarters (Barri Gòtic), although in our under-researched pride we’d seen very little of either. In fact, we’d spent the afternoon tossing Cheetos’ into eachother’s mouths under the Arc de Triomf, convinced this was the place to be, blissfully ignorant of the hip El Born area around the corner we meant explore. Oh, mañana.

By the by, my Polish friends wag their fingers at my tweets about how I may die of trench-foot because it’s 10 degrees (50°F) out. Yes, I have failed them.

Stumbling through NYC | New York Fashion Week SS14

Wearing: Sweater – Zara. Jeans – James Jeans. Heels – Lucy Choi. Bag – Couronne. Tartan shirt – Motel Rocks. Thank you Cup of Couple for helping with the shots of moi!

Well, it’s official. My champion all-nighter days are over. Now come the era of hot, crumbling mess under restaurant tables, desperate to catch a snooze between courses that are technically being served at 3am in the morning. It didn’t help that I never bothered to change my watch to NY time, so throughout the evenings every glance at the wrist was met with a mini heart-attack. Largely because normally by 11pm the hubby would be out by the door with a Sharpie and a pair of suede shoes, threatening with a game a tic-tac-toe on a pair of Chloés, but also because it really felt like all the lights were off in my body except the stomach into which I was shovelling dessert. (PARTY UP IN HURR) It was all very confusing. I returned to the hotel after each consecutive late night, reached for the laptop slurring I nee to update de bluuuuuuuug, then wrote some incoherent ramble before planting my face square onto a corner of the keyboard, typing a 25-page blogpost consisting of just Q’s, ~’s, @’s and W’s. I guess it stopped when I eventually rolled myself into bed, which let me tell you, felt like diving into milk. I guess jet lag is the closest thing to a drug I’ll ever experience. I do apologize for the radio silence, and the avalanche of posts on stand-by, soon to clog up your Bloglovin’ feed. For now, here’s a couple of shots from NYC/NYFW to get started.

Hope you’re having a wonderful week and enjoying the fashion month so far. 

Brunch spot: Ozone

Green Sweater – COS. Jeans – James Jeans. Bag – Kurt Geiger. Leather knot bracelet – COS. Gold coral ring – Michelle Oh. Watch – Sekonda. Slingback heels – Zara. Tartan shirt – Motel Rocks. Bar necklace – Kirsten Goss Urban Edge.

While the first half of my twenties can be illustrated with cheap pleather shoes of varying glue smells and £4 Covent Garden jacket potatoes, the second half is decidedly turning out to be a compulsive, obsessive hunt for the best weekend brunch spots in town – as if life depended on pancakes. That and deleting emails like it’s a sport. Life does depend on pancakes, what am I talking about. There’s also the worshiping of coffee – as if I know what ‘good’ coffee is meant to taste like. Apparently the more it tastes like Chinese herbal medicine the better, where you cringe at the sip but nod ferociously like you know what it means… although, in my book, vending machine coffee is pretty agreeable too so I guess anything with caffeine is a winner. Ozone in Shoreditch has been our latest sweetheart spot for weekends, dedicated mainly to roasting and brewing sustainable, artisan coffee but also does a mean eggs benedict. Plus, the open kitchen also means brunch usually becomes more of a bLunch after a few ‘can I have whatever he’s making’. Despite the name that sounds like a 90’s underground club, and the exterior that doesn’t promise much of an interior, it’s definitely one of those Londoner’s secrets that hide in plain sight.

Jacket – c/o Francis Leon. Skirt – ASOS (on sale now!). Shoes – Jeffrey Campbell (‘inspired’ from, Acne Terra). Bag – Coach. Lace Top – Motel Rocks. Belt – LV.

Today I woke up when it was already dark out, and had a steaming cup of apple cider for breakfast not too long ago, spiced it too – a swig of vanilla extract, a dash of ground cinnamon – good stuff. New Year’s resolutions? Haven’t met him. Instead of making an extensive list of must do‘s and must quit’s, this year I decided it might be easier to condense all that into one line: Get it together, woman; and this blog falls right in the middle of it. P&C has been growing into a big part of my life (time-wise, if anything), yet I still have absolutely no clue where this is going. I feel foolish doing outfit posts, knowing clearly it’s not anything worth documenting (thanks to one too many ‘screw this, nobody cares, I’m wearing track pants tomorrow’ during fashion weeks), most of the travels I do are in the mercy of some generous sponsor (that now all seem to prefer the tall, pretty ones with 6-digit followings), and in truth I’m making just enough to pay for my dedi-server every month + snacks.

I know I should be content with what I already have, especially my readers many of whom I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know better via emails, but every day we’re bombarded with what we don’t have, and it sucks because it casts a shadow on your own achievements and efforts, equally amazing in their own right. Ultimately, I’m afraid that I am wasting my time doing something completely unimportant in the large scheme of things – am I really loving my neighbours and fearing God? (Ironic to be saying all this under a vain outfit post, but hey, would you read this more if it were under a moody pic of a misty field?) All questions to answer in the coming year. Do we have any more end-of-the-worlds in 2013? I could do with a deadline.

One piece, Three looks: Knee-length chino trousers

Wallet, Chloe

Look 1 (from left to right): Mint Sweater, H&M. Patterned blouse, Zara. Shorts, Uniqlo. Sandals, Camilla Skovgaard, Straw Bag, Chloe
Look 2: Jacket, Barbour. Checkered blouse, Motel Rocks.Shorts, Uniqlo. Bag, Marc Jacobs (via Monnier Freres). Shoes, Kate Kanzier. Headphones, Urbanears. Belt, JHYoo. Cat-eye Sunnies, Beyond Retro
Look 3: Bag, Bottega Veneta Initials. Shoes, Coii.kr. Sleeveless blazer, ASOS Africa. Checkered Top, stolen from mummy. Shorts, Uniqlo.

You know how summers go. Vacations, festivals, family reunions, hairplugs, cider by the river, breast reduction surgery, sample sales, that one trip to the zoo where you swear off children forever… I know you know what I mean, you’re BUSY, so, what blog? Well. None of those happened to me in the past postless week so sadly no point getting excited (do we count slamming chest-on into a shelf ‘reduction surgery’? YES/NO). In fact I was home the entire week working 9-to-5 in my suit (suit for super-cool stuff like sleeping) migrating from desk to bed and occasionally the postbox for Dominos Pizza flyers. ‘Tomorrow!’ was the battle-cry, and this blog was the victim in one. Hey, I’m back now, with chino shorts (what an odd thing to comeback in) – I bet you’ve never seen anything like this in a glossy magazine before! In fact I’d fold them neatly and place them in a box with the power drill and a jug of motor oil, marked ‘Utility Stuff’. It was fun though, the challenge of trying to style one, and since I was on a roll of NOT blogging this is a pretty good brain teaser to help reverse directions and roll the other way towards a land of bountiful motivation and cakes, lots of cakes…

Many thanks to Kitty Kat for helping with the photos