After my Topshop pleated skirt debacle, nice skirt dreadful quality, I feel compelled to get the perfect pleated skirt to last me for ever. The Whistles midi one in taupe is enough of a maybe Chloe number for me to covert. However, it is sold out but hurrah I'm on a wait list. The last wait list I was on was the Anya Hindmarch 'I'm not a plastic bag' - gosh nostalgic times hey!
My old LCF chums and I met to have a bite to eat in our usual, Carluccio's St Christopher's Place. Why change from a winning formula, all though I did surprise by breaking away from my usual of ravioli or pasta con fungi. I never knew I had the ability to go off piste when ordering. All these things are amounting to change and are worrying me.
After we dispensed with retail, styling and things that have gone wrong on a commercial video shoot gossip we nipped in to Reiss on Barrett St as they had free champagne and 10% off evening. Lie down for this one....I didn't even lift a glass of champagne to my lips. Then I tried on my two items from Reiss on my summer clothes list and was over them the moment I had the satisfaction of the look staring back at me from the mirror. It was incredible, my magpie instincts have been cured. All I need to do is try the items on in the shop, admire for a moment and then hand then back. It is a genius cure for which there is no explanation other than all my efforts to truly make do over the last 5 years have finally culminated and the result is A++. I feel like I have graduated from something in to a secret club. A club where wisdom rules over fashion. It is as if I have Diana Veerland on my shoulders whispering things in my head like ' The only real elegance is in the mind; if you've got that, the rest really comes from it'. Or when she famously told Maria Helvin not to drink champagne as it would give her fat hips!
It was true I went home lighter, no champagne bubbles on my hips and no unnecessary bag and only my purse was still heavy with folding.
I'm sure it is due to following my hearts desire of writing and not struggling with a job I find easy and am good at but have no passion for (well, any more/currently). I've also had the joy of being able to pick up the petit garcon from school and spend time with him in a way I'd never have imagined. Because until now it has been rush, rush, rush in all areas. I actually got to make pancakes this year and they were delicious. I've also got the dog to look after again and seeing sunrises at 6am are a new factor. The dog wakes me up to take him out for a walk! I suppose some know it all would say it is all about getting your balance right in life, but you know I like the thought of finding your own rhythm as a better metaphor. Balance suggests order and superiority. I'd like to think I can go 'crazy', be hedonistic, have fun and not think of myself 'knowing' better than others as we all want things, spend money we shouldn't, do things we shouldn't and have regrets, that's life.
American pancake with blueberries & ice cream, the petit garcon is horrified by good old fashioned pancakes with lemon and sugar, I blame that Jamie Oliver!
And as I was on the train home I had the misfortune to read about one of the girls who I used to see at LCF who graduated when I did, she was an undergraduate, had died in tragic circumstances of the party sort when drugs and drink are involved after London Fashion Week and I thought actually Diana Veerland was a wise old bird, she is not a bad voice to have nagging me.
When I got home I opened my wardrobe and said 'hello friends' as I'm going to make the most of them and save my pennies for another day, even a rainy one.
