Amanda Brooks: I love your style

I am very pleased to say that Amanda Brooks (formerly at Barneys New York) has resumed her blog, www.iloveyourstyle.com. She has recently moved from New York to the English country side and her descriptions of style in her new surroundings are funny and charming. Amanda was the ultimate NYC fashion girl but now lives around farms and muddy fields. A very worthwhile blog read.

Amanda Brooks glammed up - photo from www.fashionologie.com

Blog = therapy

I spend a fairly ridiculous amount of time taking pictures of my outfits or shoes thinking I may put them on the blog. They almost always end up on the cutting room floor because they are so bad, but the process inevitably has me in stitches. My kids will be in stitches too and we all forget about any moodyness or stresses for a little while when mummy does the blog.

the print of my new JDCamicetta top accidentally reflected in the magnifying mirror

Mummy you look like you are having a baby. Are you???

back side towards mirror, then bend over and take the picture between the thighs

...and there is that backside again. Couldn't quite manage to lose it for the pic (and I have a personal rule that I do not crop pictures after the fact - I am trying to be disciplined and take the picture properly in the first place)

Ode to Bergdorf

Christmas has come to the 7th floor

does your daughter need an Oscar de la Renta cardigan?

I have always wanted a needlepoint reindeer

The people at Bergdorf Goodman know how to awe their customers. I walked through the shop today helplessly looking for Tom Ford lipstick (cosmetics now has its own basement!!!!!!! A salesgirl down there marveled at my recollection of the beauty department being on the ground floor on the 57th street side - OMGawd I heard it used to be there a long time ago!) Anyway, I digress. But during my search I managed to be seduced by everything on the floor, even though most of it I consider Upper East Side older lady stuff. Ha! Guess what that makes me. Anyway, I digress again. This shop made me long for proper shopping, the impulse kind (as opposed to the boring clinical online shop), I mean the kind that makes you feel butterflies at first, and mortification right after when you realize you spent way more than you can afford.  If I LOVE FASHION were to do a typecast bucket list, a long leisurely stroll through Bergdorf would be very, very high up on the must do's.

These streets will make you feel brand new

photo from www.huffingtonpost.com

I took a quick shopping escape from husband and kids an hour ago, and when passing Rizzoli bookshop on 57th I saw this picture of John F. and Jackie Kennedy on the cover of a photo book by Mark Shaw. It's an inspiring picture for a wannabe photographer and fashion and beauty obsessive. I walked over to the JCrew Collection store on Madison between 65th and 66th. JCrew just never disappoints nowadays. I suspect Jackie would have liked JCrew if she were around today. The weather has not been great, it's grey and drizzly, but there are lights up on 57th, so it's getting properly winter cozy out here.

couldn't wait till night time I was so excited to see the lights

The Plaza reflected in Bergdorf's anniversary windows

grey skies and grey paint in Soho - but very clever perfect complexion lighting inside Space NK

amazing leaded windows somewhere along the High Line in the meat packing district

The beautiful New York City Center 

64th between Madison and 5th - just a perfect street

happy vibes in JCrew Soho

What to wear for dinner

The London Hotel in NYC - deciding which JDCamicetta  to wear for dinner

On the left my fave picture at the MOMA (Stuart Davis' Egg Beater, V, 1930) and

on the right 2 brand new JDCamicetta Fiona tops

Gorgeous jacket by Neil Barrett

Neil Barrett jacket - buy it HERE

As I was saying yesterday I saw Net-a-Porter founder Natalie Massenet wearing a really cool baseball style jacket with black leather sleeves. I love this version even better - it doesn't have the elasticated waistband that proper baseball jackets have, so it hangs nicer.

About Natalie Massenet and cargo pants

Uncle B displays a real talent for carving pumpkins

Indian corn at the local market

No fashion at all to report on from New Paltz. In fact I am constantly in yesterday's comfy sweater. Am currently sitting in front of the Jets and Patriots game - no fashion required there. Last proper fashion experience I had was waiting at the baggage carousel at JFK after the 15 and a half hour flight from Hong Kong. My husband had asked me whether I minded him wearing his Swiss mountain pants on the flight - imagine light weight greyish monstrosities with endless cargo pockets and horizontal zippers above the knees should the sudden need strike to turn the pants into shorts. In reply I had told him do whatever you have to. 

At said carousel I immediately spotted a tremendously chic Natalie Massenet, founder of www.net-a-porter.com - perfect ponytail, black skinnies and low heeled YSL slingbacks with gold cap toes and a tiny black wool baseball jacket with leather sleeves. At the same moment my cargo pant wearing husband starts furiously waving to me asking me to identify my bag. Needless to say I pretended I didn't know the mountain man at the carousel. I instructed my son to whisper these words in his ear: "as long as the founder of net-a-porter is between me and your cargo pants I cannot help you at all". He took it rather well, but to husbands everywhere: wear those pants at your own risk.

A jumper fit for the buffet

The view from the shower in upstate New York. The screen has turned my picture into a needlepoint canvas

I am in America! And it's upstate New York Fall! So in fashion terms, I get to wear my giant oversized new JCrew jumper from California.  As soon as I get back to Manhattan I am going to get the blue and purple version as well. You can eat the buffet with this jumper. Very useful when in America.

Retouching Halle Berry

Halle Berry is pretty hot. There are few people who naturally look that great in their forties. So why did InStyle feel it necessary to do this horrible photoshop job on her underarm and side? There is the odd shadow under the arm, the strangely tight fitting shape of the dress, the stick straight line of her arm where normally we would see her biceps... At the risk of sounding preachy, I find it disgraceful that Halle Berry is not good enough to grace the cover just as she is.

Bedhead Bangs

Love these bangs on Alexa Chung because it's hard to tell where the begin and end. Great messy look. Picture from www.zimbio.com

Dafen Art Village

Dafen art village

Dafen art village

one man's trash, another girl's treasure

One day I am going to have a beautiful walk-in closet. It's going to be enormously girly and I will put all the flower pictures I have been collecting from the Dafen art village in that little room. If you have not gone to Dafen, you must try it. There are thousands of stalls, some with really good paintings and many with really bad ones. Ever so often you find a treasure for your little future walk-in closet.

 Kate and Andy Spade's house - photo by www.theselby.com

I would love for the room to be a rounded shape, like this entrance of Kate and Andy Spade's house photographed by www.theselby.com. How gorgeous is that mix of paintings, pencil drawings and photographs. I will have to forgo buying only flower pictures if I want to achieve a similar effect... One thing that always strikes me in China is that they use cool colors rather than warm ones. Everything is often quite colorful, but it rarely ever feels warm, like the colors of the Mediterranean are warm.

Sloane Square

The Prince Harry cover of Tatler made me think of Diana, and her early sloany style. The wool jumpers and longish respectable pleated skirts with flat shoes or boots. The yellow and red colored type is great together - this cover looks really fresh to me. Anyway, I should say fashion is my obsession rather than I Love Fashion, because the minute I saw this cover I wanted to polyvore myself some sloany outfits in red and yellow. Fashion is my obsession.

Dusty orange

I am officially no longer Dutch since I have fully, and I mean fully, embraced fake flowers. I got fake lavender and fake hydrangeas already. Obsessed with finding just the right orange to go with my cheapy blue Chinese vase, I could only find it in faux. I wanted the flowers to be the color of the JDCamicetta silk top on the left, a slightly dusty orange. That fabric is just perfect really... It'll be on our racks at the sale event on Tuesday. Hope to see you there.

Brown hair envy

I have woken up with hair envy.... and maybe a bit of face, eye and lip envy too

Jessica Biel before the bangs, from www.zimbio.com

Can pearls ever be cool?

Can pearls ever be cool (on a housewife doing the soccer pick-up)? They have an instant dpp effect on anything I wear (demure prim & proper) - I wore them today because this Saint James stripy shirt is pretty much the same color as my skin and I needed something to separate my shirt from my neck... For cool pearls I suppose it helps if they are big, and not paired with anything prim (stripy shirt) or proper (white jeans) or demure (me ☺).

well I guess this is cool, in a very grown up lady sort of way.... photo from www.vogue.fr

photo from Paris Vogue, March 2009

Fiona tops galore

spending my morning checking measurements of newly arrived Fiona tops....

Lady Gaga v Cathy Horyn

In her review of Oscar de la Renta's spring 2013 show The New York Times' fashion critic Cathy Horyn described the designer as a bit of a showboat (she used the word "hot dog") rather than an éminence grise (a statesman-like presence, I suppose because he's 80 years old). Read the original review HERE. Mr De la Renta didn't understand the hot dog reference and got angry enough to react in an open letter to Ms Horyn.

All fairly predictable so far, critic finds an obscure reference to insult a designer and designer can't keep his cool long enough to just ignore her. But it starts getting good when Lady Gaga gets involved: a few days later in Paris, the songstress takes sides and declares in a RAP that "Cathy Horyn's style ain't dick".

Now it's getting exciting! I may not describe Cathy Horyn's style that way, but it surely is a non-existent style. She is no Hilary Alexander or Suzy Menkes.

A bit of a mean-girl boy in my FIT class once said that he could never respect a designer's clothes if that designer could not dress well himself. I suppose that could be a valid observation for critics as well. If a critic dresses like a mousy grey middle-of-the-road frump, can we trust her when she wildly critiques away? Read some of her cattiest opinions right HERE and decide for yourselves...

I am dying to know if Cathy knows the difference between a silk crepe and a twill, or if she could cut a piece of fabric on the bias if I gave her a few yards. She probably does - she works for the venerable New York Times after all - but I would love to see a reality style show with Cathy in the hot seat and Lady Gaga yelling orders at her: Define plain weave!!! Draw a kimono sleeve with gusset!!! Drape a shift dress!!!

The New York Times must be loving all this. After all, it is not easy for a respectable broadsheet to steal headlines from the likes of the www.huffingtonpost.com or www.dailymail.co.uk. In fact, I think the frump may get a raise.

NYT Fashion Critic Cathy Horyn dresses up. Photo from www.zimbio.com

It's almost Christmas

Are those Christmas stars in the Hong Kong Harvey Nichols window? And what about the cheery lights? And a pig that flies? A jolt of Christmas excitement shot through my veins as I noticed the window from across the street. Is it almost Christmas???

At COS it certainly feels like Christmas. Lots of very nice jumpers and knitted jackets. But I am concerned there are never many people in there when I go... Please let this not be another Krispy Kreme doughnuts. I still cannot understand how Krispy Kreme could not survive in Hong Kong, but it didn't. So please all go visit COS. It's brilliant and if you are longing for Christmas coziness go buy yourself a woolly jumper. COS is on Queen's Road Central at Pottinger Street.