Necklace – Cartier Amulette

You know what they say, if you’ve done a round of Scrabble, it’s time for some Charades and beers. Then Karaoke. Then more beers. A plate of quesadilla too if you can distinguish pan from pot. If not, just toss everything into a bucket of KFC Assorted Wings and eat it with a ladle, it all looks the same when it comes out as chunks later. Who says that? I don’t know, probably somebody famous, and fabulous. Somebody last Friday night maybe, who may or may not have had one too many glasses of boxed wine, who sang Swan Princess until the cops showed up at the door. DEREK! YOU AND I WERE MEANT TO BE…

I digress. Ladies and gentlefolk, welcome to the charades and karaoke part of the night. Everything is downhill from here. If you’ve been following this blog for the past eight years, you know I’ve shuffled a LOT of shameless face cards and tiled many a Scrabble board with bad grammar and nonsensical rants. It was only time that we moved the party onto the singing and dancing part*.

UNLOCK • Watch the full video below

In all frankness, it took exactly one year and two months – to the day – to muster up the courage to put this up here for you to see. One rainy Sunday in June 2015, I took two buses to get to the On.Cut studio shack up in Hendon, and within about 20 minutes of warm-up** and a packet of Cheesy Dorito’s, we got to recording. At Emarr at the helm, song practically wrote itself. Jam mixed it on the spot. Ten days later we shot the video under an incredibly menstrual July sky and amidst a field of lavender. I could barely remember the words.

It’s not a Billboard topper, heck, it’s shower singing at best, but it’s a small dream come true. Thanks are due to Cartier’s relentless support, to my assistant Simon (who judges Rihanna yet curiously reserves comments on my wailing) and to hidden talents like Emarr & Jam… here’s Unlock.***

* More on Snapchat (ID Sparkncube) and Instagram Stories
** Basically yelling ‘WOW. WOW. WAW. WAAAW’ until the dudes say that’s not really a thing.
*** On hindsight, let’s all pretend that blue smoke grenade is a gassy Pokemon in the wild, and not a hipster filming gimmick that I thought was a great idea at the time. AIN’T IT SO 2015.

Dress – Zara. Shirt – ASOS. Hat – Zara (similar).

Dress – Razan Alazzouni

Blazer – Each x Other. Blouse – Raquel Allegra. Bag – Baraboux

Dress, bag & Shoes – Louis Vuitton. Trousers – Zara. Sunnies – Dior.

I feel like a big part of the process of becoming an adult, is the ability to brutally edit down some very broad choices in life to an easily digestible-yet-not-so-round number of three. How many little pigs? Three. Musketeers? Three (not sure if those particular ones are life choices…). How many people in a priest, a minister and a rabbi joke? My point is, three is a catchy number, and that’s the number of takeaways I can find in my past 7-days Deliveroo log, and number of words in one of my favourite phrases: Just get naked. (Or I’m lovin’ it)

I’ve spent most of my 20’s leasing space in the beauty pouch to what would now be collectively a sizeable lipstick assortment, which, if laid side-by-side and compared, would simply divide into three categories: the everyday, classic red, and the pizazz. As shown above. The dark purple gothy glittery number doesn’t even make it into the bag.

So this is a story we shot during PFW, celebrating Bobbi Brown’s new Luxe Lip collection as one of the digital ambassadors, and also an semi-official dubbing of the three colour categories that I’ve nailed down and can now move onto my next ‘three favourites’, in the grand path of becoming an adult.

In collaboration with Bobbi Brown & Shopstyle.

Blazer & Skirt – Filippa K. Trousers – Filippa K. Gold cap Heels – YSL. Clutch – Whistles (similar).

Bracelet – Meriko London. Skirt – ASOS. Off-the-shoulder top – Topshop.

Rose is a great gal, soft but of solid build, great legs too. One afternoon in May I had spent an embarrassing amount of time at the Sofa & Chair Company, doing laps around the showrooms and then poring over fabric books as thick as my forearm. They are known to specialise in bespoke, luxury furniture, and I was in the market for a sofa. If you follow on Pinterest you’ll have noticed this little corner of my brain that still hasn’t reached puberty, clearly one that saw an opportunity and yelled ‘PINK, Let’s just do pink’ after hours of umming and ahhing and many a frazzled nerves of those waiting for me to decide. Six weeks later I met Rose, and I was enamoured by the result. (It could’ve been worse, I have a secret Austin Powers board) The blush fabric (Fabric: KOBE – Samba 38) was pulled over the supple foam-wrapped feather cushioning of the Renoir, and the light bounced cheekily off the dimples created by pulled buttons covered also, in linen blush-pink fabric. A cloud-grey piping (KOBE – 8) swept the edges and married perfectly with the marble coffee table. I was in love.

Ignore my brash Dorito-infused lifestyle for a moment, I’m marking this sofa an icon of awesome spontaneity, and small a reminder to see the world one more time with rose-tinted shades before this sarcasm becomes my identity and it’s too late.

Stay tuned for Part 2: The (gruelling) customization process and a tour of the Sofa & Chair Company factory (specifically, a room filled floor-to-ceiling with pastel-coloured foam, or also known as CAN I HAS DIS).

Shoes – Senso. Coat – Filippa K

Jumpsuit – Dagmar.

Bag – Marni. Perfume – Jersey by Chanel. Key clip – Whistles x Moxham. Coin pouch – gift from mum.

Coat – Charlie May. Cashmere sweater – Uniqlo. Trousers – Zara. Heels – Gianvito Rossi. Bag – Marni. Earrings – Dior. Watch – Larsson & Jennings.  Necklaces – Monica Vinader.

Numbered are the days I will be able to rely on the blinding morning sunlight as a slap on the face and get out of bed like a normal human being. Cue what I call the spinning beachball of death syndrome, wherein I try to convince myself, way past the 14^th snooze, that life does exist outside the micro-climate that is under my duvet. The clocks went back over the weekend and we had one of the most beautiful Sundays I’d seen in a while. I hit the flower market, prepared it’d be my last this year, and bought a bunch of dahlia’s for a tenner. By the afternoon I had managed to cross town to the V&A, wilting flowers in tow, which only confirmed the power of weather-influenced stamina, one that we were about to be deprived of, shortly.

Alas, the season of overpriced eggs benedict breakfasts ‘at that hipster place’ for the sake of a sunny morning is coming to an end. That, and a run around the block at random times in the day (because the weather is nice), which ultimately does nothing, really, for your diet. Try running on a morning that looks like stupid-o’clock in mid-November, then you can put ‘jogger’ back on your Facebook profile. My personal challenge is getting up at 7am this quarter, and limiting longing looks towards the bed down to one hour. What’s yours?

Photos with Mr. Tripod

London Fashion Week AW14

Eudon Choi AW14

Marios Schwab AW14

Whistles AW14

Burberry AW14

Harry Styles in the house, yo

Outfit 1 (Camel coat): Coat – Club Monaco, Muff – Topshop. Bag – Mansur Gavriel (available for pre-order!). Jeans – James Jeans. Shoes – Church’s. Lipstick – Estee Lauder.

Outfit 2 (Houndstooth coat):  Coat – Selected Femme (via ASOS). Trousers – Zara (similar here). Shoes – ASOS. Muff – Topshop. Bag – Kurt Geiger Britton bowler

Well that just whizzed by, didn’t it. Considering how every season in the past I hobbled home like a war hero, full of stories to tell the grandchildren, dangling off crutches constructed of empty Vitamin Water bottles, this season LFW just felt MUCH less eventful. In fact, it felt like I’d gone to war, hid in the bushes and waited till it was over. I suppose technically this was true, as Hyundai had been so generous to sponsor a car and I spent 70% of the time in there with the awesome driver called Arthur, who’d instantly appear with the Santa Fe from around the corner when I shone a thumbs-up emoji signal into the dark clouds. Thumbs up for ‘I’m done here, let’s get stuck in traffic and talk about motorbikes‘. Coincidentally, I got more work done in that car than a week’s worth of working from home as well, which only confirms that I only work efficiently with impending deadlines (e.g GPS announcing we’re approaching destination). I also started a new relationship with a new phone at the beginning of the week – the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 (via Carphone Warehouse) – and spent the five days in honeymoon bliss, poring over improved functionalities (I’m upgrading from the Note 2) and panicked when it took two minutes, not six, to put up an Instagram photo. What does one do with extra four minutes in life?

It was a good season, and for the first time ever I felt like I saw the few shows I really wanted to see (except Mary Katrantzou, that ticket will be my Oscar). Do look out for more updates in the next few weeks. Plus, I didn’t shorten my lifespan by about twenty years by having to haul three camera lenses and a laptop the whole week. I may have grandchildren, after all!

Many thanks to Hyundai UK and Carphone Warehouse again for the extra twenty years, plus four minutes. Also, a cheeky shout-out  to Lulu Guinness and Vita Coco for the survival kits that made the car known as the ‘party car’ by my peers.