Woe is me

For the 10th day straight I am wearing a ski jacket. My house is not heated, after all this is supposed to be a tropical island. It's so cold and damp up here I can't think straight. Maybe that explains the neon and tweed pants combo with dual shades of leopard. When I came to volunteer in the school book shop my 6-year old girl whispered to me: "mummy can you put on regular clothes when you come here next time?".....  There's nothing like your mum embarrassing you at school! Although this will be a first generation problem, cos my own mum always looked gorgeous when I was a kid.

Don't let the flowers convince you I am exaggerating about the fog. Can see the flowers, just can't see my neighbors.

Price Per Wear

I desperately need a change. These are the 4 items I have worn more than anything else for the past 5 years or so. JCrew field jacket, JBrand cropped jeans with zips, St James stripy cotton shirt, Marc Jacobs sandals with a thick and sturdy 3 inch heel. If I am considering Price Per Wear on these, then I am at minus 367. But I am so bored with myself. And now I am boring you too! Doesn't seem like the best strategy for a blog.

My 2 Cents on Oscar Dresses

Michelle's dress had bows on the front which I didn't like, but she wears red and orange and yellow so well - with that haircut and the watermelon lips she was pretty perfect.

This is how a woman in her fifties should look. Not the usual Hollywood plasticness. She looks real, but incredibly beautiful.

Gwyneth is the queen. Or maybe Tom is the king. But this dress is absolute perfection. I have never seen a more beautiful Oscar dress ever. Penelope Cruz looked pretty too, but no match for the perfect tailoring displayed in Tom Ford's dress.

It's almost here!

I walked past H&M today and there it was! A huge white boarded up store front with the COS logo... woohoo!!! Let's hope they sell jumpers. The fog on the Peak has been intense - in this picture you'd normally see Victoria Peak which is only about 400 metres from my window.

Browse a Catalogue

Three words that make me very happy Browse a Catalogue - for a while the people at JCrew stopped showing the catalogues on their website, but they have now come back to their senses. Check it out, the stylist of this catalogue is too fab for words. http://www.jcrew.com/footer/browsecatalog.jsp

Year Round Dressing

Picture by Phil Oh for www.vogue.com

This girl has taken one of spring's hottest items, lemon yellow skinny jeans, and made them work in icy cold London with a tweed coat and a multi-colored woolly jumper. The bright cobalt blue flap on her Celine bag makes the lemon jeans look even more pale. I love to see an adventurous dresser like this. Life is short, so have a little fun with your clothes while living it.

Re-issue

Celine calls it a re-issue of last year's style. I'd like to call it divine intervention. And I'll be thanking high priestess Phoebe Philo in my prayers.

I am not going to wear them in full Celine minimalist mode but probably try my new light blue JDCamicetta skirt with them, chanel-ize it a tiny bit with an old Zara jacket and do the sportswear trend on the cheap with a Nike T-shirt. Or else another fave look of JDCamicetta shirtdress underneath a JDCamicetta Fiona dress. It's still too cold to choose one or the other.

Chanel makes me think of Karl and then over to Adele, since as you may have read recently, the hollow-cheeked designer geezer has a new line of clothes to sell and of course that always coincides with a bit of wannabe outrageous behavior on his part. Yawn. See below a pic from US Vogue. She is such a stunner. That's how I'd like to do my eye make-up while wearing those Celines.

Orangey red

The bit at IFC Lane Crawford which always had jeans and T-shirts and is now all grown up and has been turned into paradise. Full of Acne, Rag and Bone, Wang, and Carven, and so much more. I hadn't been there for ages (read: no-shopping pact) but now I will have to go again. Even if it is only to try on for size and then order online. Someone told me about a store where you have to pay a deposit to try on boots... Oh yes, now I remember, it was ski boots. Online competition must be a pretty scary problem for the shops. But Lane Crawford and Hong Kong in general can't compete with prices online. The answer has got to be exclusives exclusives exclusives. I remember Neiman Marcus always demanding (and receiving) exclusive colors from kate spade.

There is so much beautiful orangey red around - has got to be the color of the season. To make it work with a pale face I love bright red lips. Am going to track down the color below - back to LC it is.

Chunky ankle boots at Proenza

The chunky footwear for Fall 2012 at Proenza Schouler is amazing. There are short boots and tall ones with big stacked heels and squared off toes. This is the first time I have been tempted to do a pre-order on www.modaoperandi.com, the website which sells brand new looks directly off the runway (to be delivered at a later date). There were lots of tough looking ankle boots in the Fall shows and I wonder if that's the influence of street style blogs, which often feature average people wearing real life practical clothes. During the four months of winter in NYC it's hard to live your life in dainty Louboutins!

Where is THIS Hong Kong?

So fed up with winter and fog. Where is THIS Hong Kong?????

Ready to leave the dull black and grey stuff behind and go for some color! JDCamicetta Fiona top. Just throw on some shorts in a contrasting pattern and any old flats will do. Summer, where are you? I didn't move from England to experience even denser fog.

whoreallycaresdotcom

I just looked up whether whoreallycaresdotcom exists. It does. GoDaddy has parked it for someone who is getting their act together thinking what to do with this cleverly named dotcom. I have trouble doing this blog thing without wondering what is it good for or who really cares. I always had the same thing while working as a designer. I'd come up with yet another 700 dollar handbag wondering if I was ever going to contribute something worthwhile to society.

But at the same time, I loooove everything to do with textiles, style, symmetry, proportion, color, beauty. Seeing something beautiful makes me happy. So that's what I am counting on with this blog. That something beautiful will make someone happy. Small tiny itsy bitsy miniscule contribution to society?

I have felt a nagging need for the last year and a half to define a purpose for this stuff. Thanks lovely Denise, who just last week told me she loves getting posts in her inbox.

Below a drawing from 1997 which was sitting around gathering dust until I just framed it. Reminds me of kate spade days, so exciting fresh out of F.I.T. to be part of that little company. Even though my daily duties were more about Starbucks runs and running after sweet little Henry than about drawing or design.

American talent

New York fashion week is here and so far I loved Peter Som's show - the jackets have a bit of a Japanese feel to them and peplum bits on trousers and dresses were subtle enough not to look costumy but almost turned the boyish figures of the models into womanly shapes. I say almost, cos the models seem even skinnier this season.

                      Love the colors and combination of shiny and matte fabrics and textures                               

  The petrol blue dress would make a great Oscar dress for Rooney Mara

Yellow and Pink

Hong Kong coffee shop

De Kooning

I love pink and yellow together everywhere. But in clothes? Some looks below.

www.zara.com

www.topshop.com

www.carven.com

What to pack for Vegas

Daria Werbowy looking glamorous in February Vogue Paris in turquoise lace dress. A beautiful editorial in which Vegas features as that mythical place where the mix of grit and bright lights are a perfect backdrop for the most beautiful clothes in the world. The new website (www.vogue.fr) is so good! Check it out, it's so pretty and clean and symmetrical. Really one of the best fashion websites I have ever seen. This is what Vogue likes you to pack for your trip to Vegas (and I know once again I will scare you but I looove the cheesy white Marc Jacobs boots on the right):

But this is what the actual visitors packed :). Funny place Vegas.

Misgivings gone

if I could afford this ring, I'd happily put all my misgivings about LVMH aside....


it is breathtaking. even on newspaper print.


so beautiful.


sigh.

Posh on cover of i-D Magazine

photos via www.telegraph.co.uk

Posh looking tough on the cover of i-D (although she is not the only one, there are apparently 9 cover versions - someone at i-D clearly has commitment issues) but Michelle Williams is looking sweet as ever at the Oscar nominees lunch in her Victoria by Victoria Beckham dress. She is nominated for My Week with Marilyn which opens in Hong Kong next week.

Respect!!!

You have to see Emmanuelle Alt (editor-in-chief of Vogue Paris) perform Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.... So much new respect for her!!! I can't quite imagine Anna Wintour or Carine Roitfeld doing something like this. Just absolutely love it when someone in a public job is willing to show their silly side. And Anja Rubik performs as a back-up girl.

Watch it here: http://www.vogue.fr/vogue-tv/reportages/videos/decouvrez-le-nouveau-vogue-fr/1301

Another obsession (possibly unhealthy)

I don't know if it's the round toes or just a mid-life crisis sort of thing... I do love the round toes on Isabel Marant's dicker boots. It throws the eye off, because basically the dicker is a tried and true short western boot which you'd expect to be pointy. And it makes them super comfortable too. And well the mid-life thing is too why I love them. I keep thinking how many years do I have left wearing mini-skirts or shorts in town rather than at the pool. Dickers make me feel a bit French and defiant. And I guess they pass my night stand test. I used to put new shoes on my night stand as a kid and admired them at bedtime. I always had an obsessive eye when it came to the angle of a heel or the side profile of a shoe. Dickers have been around long enough that people in places like Dayton or Akron are searching for them in dicker forums, so last season it looked like Isabel Marant would do the French thing and never sell these vulgar crowd pleasers again. But maybe good old capitalism won out, because the company has re-issued these best-sellers on www.net-a-porter.com, www.matchesfashion.com, www.mytheresa.com and www.lagarconne.com. The Isabel Marant store on Paterson Street in Causeway Bay is also selling them again in camel and light green. Deep down I hope they never go away... and when my legs are too old to carry them off I'll just put them on my night stand.

Current obsessions at I LOVE FASHION

China jam dishes for jewelry - these were a-dime-a-dozen in English second hand shops - wish I had bought a million more. Love using them for any small bits around the house.

Cova fruit jellies - THE way to get your sugar

Taupe Balenciaga - caused a riot which led to no-shopping pact - but so worth it

Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy - why did I wait so long?

Dior Couture

All sweetness and light... Karlie looks like an angel in her pretty voile dress in front of all that black.

www.vogue.com

www.vogue.com

Back in stock!

Aquamarine and topaz necklaces back in stock! Cheerful happy Emma top by JDCamicetta. Not so clear picture by Blackberry.

Song of Style

This girl is one of the thousands of young girls taking daily pictures of their outfits and posting them on their blogs. Some are downright awful but this girl has a knack for creating very cute outfits with mostly high street clothes. The California backdrops don't hurt either. www.songofstyle.blogspot.com.