Gallery Magazine

Gallery Magazine snuk onto my Big Love X list t'other day with little announcement. Thought I should give it a shout.
Gallery is a free monthly Jersey based magazine, 'written by the islanders for the islanders' and all that. It's a brilliant read with some terribly witty contributors. I get my stepmother to send it to me each month.

As can be imagined, when living on an island nine miles by five, you tend to know quite a lot of people. Here are a couple of covers with my friends Hannah and Holly on looking beautiful...

Weekend in Jersey

These are some images from my weekend that I spent in Jersey. Various siblings and parents make appearances.

The Wanted

I predict these will be the next people to hit our radios everyday until we throw them out the window:



The Wanted. Unfortunately can't find any music on the Internet. The single comes out 5th July and apparently will hit the radio hard in the face in about a month. They played their first gig yesterday I think. But click here to go to their website where they've all had Twitter accounts created for them so the unsuspecting public can follow their every move. Cool.

Trendy Recession - Ugh.

Not a hugely original idea for a post but still trend reporting just the same. Style magazine yesterday had an interesting article about how the recession has changed people’s minds about mainstream fashion. I can’t remember the wording but it got me thinking. I don’t really like using the word recession and despise ‘Credit Crunch’ even more. Ew gross – far too much of a cliché. It’s like the word ‘trendy’, honestly gives me a shiver of revulsion. The worst one though and I can hardly bring myself to type it – Shabby-Chic. Gross gross gross.

Anyway that’s out the way now, back to the point that Style made yesterday. It is very true that many more people have started to hunt out bargains from all the nooks and crannies of streets from markets to charity shops and then the far flung corners of the web too with so many tiny boutique vintage shops that have discovered, perhaps not a thriving business, but definitely a stable income through their own sourcing and selling onto the customer.

People have always frowned upon Topshop and even more upon Primark and over the last eighteen months or two years, it has become essential that if wearing one piece from mainstream high street it needs to be carefully disguised. Whether hidden behind one-off pieces, your mum’s shell suit jacket from the 80’s, your botfriend's shirt or blazer, charity shop or vintage finds or just whole load of attitude, high street is always one step behind. The rule is that now, if you want to be chic then its all about juxtaposition. These two tie in well. For great one-off things, there's always Beyond Retro and LoveMissDaisy is perfect for lovely vintage things. I found them about a year ago and follow them on Twitter, so happy they were featured in Style yesterday. I really hope they do well out of it. theOutnet.com is fabulous. Still a bit beyond my budget but there are stunning discounts off designer gear. The website is celebrating it's first birthday in April, you can register to receive a link to sale where everything is going to £1 in celebration. Click here. I'm excited, as I've mentioned earlier about Lily Allen's new line of vintage clothing.

Moreover, it’s about a well thought out outfit that looks like your whole wardrobe is brimming with beautiful clothes so it takes you no time at all in the morning to pick out something beautiful. Well, that’s what I aspire to anyway. Its not going so hot right now though.

Hi! Sushi

SO I went out for dinner last night to Hi Sushi on Frith Street in Soho with a friend. Feeling that familiar end-of-the-month strapped for cash niggle as I am, I wanted to go somewhere cheap. My friend assured me that it was an all you can eat sushi buffet for under £15. Thought it sounded ok so off we popped. I met her outside and we were shown into a small room, brightly painted with lots of people shouting and waving chopsticks around the place. We went downstairs and were shown to our seats. Now I hate to start on a bad note, but this is honestly my only complaint that I have about the place. It's just that I like chairs, they're easy, comfy and are obviously so abundant because people find them such. So I wasn't much looking forward to sitting in a small space between wall and table which we were sharing with a whole load of people we didn't know. But sit I did and only made a tit of myself when getting up at the end of the meal.
As a general rule I enjoy sitting on the floor, its one of my favourite places in the world, and once I was down there, I had a great night.
So we ticked a whole load of random boxes and they brought us out the corresponding dishes. I love sushi and it was reeeally good sushi. The lovely staff brought out the first plate of food and I was thinking gosh, that is a lot of fish. So we dig into that with our wine and after a California Roll or two had been consumed, another platter was presented to us full of fried calamari, spring roll kind of things, tiger prawns and sweet potato. Yumski. Slightly overwhelmed by the amount of food sitting in front of me I whipped out the Blackbezza and snapped a pretty awful shot. I really must improve my photography if this is going to become a regular occurrence. Despite the hideous photo that you can barely see, I feel it still gives an idea of the gargantuan amount of food:

Amy does Fred

Just found these illustrations courtesy of Volt Magazine. It's the new line that Amy Winehouse has designed for Fred Perry due to hit us full in the face in October of this year. It all looks like its come straight from Amy's wardrobe, lots of figure hugging but angular shapes with hourglass shapes and nipped in waists. True of all of these bar the jumper dress. Can't really work out where that fits in. New Look meets golf caddie? Definitely love the double checked mania of the shirt and mini skirt. I'll have me one of those please.

Le Cool

I silently added Le Cool to my Big Love list the other day after having sworn that I would add nothing of significant value without giving it a little bit of an intro. Le Cool is a well written online magazine with lots of fun suggestions for things to do in London. I look forward to receiving the newsletter every Thursday, it gives some good suggestions and most of the time at least half of them really appeal to me.

Bad times though, most of the things happen in East or East Central. There are a few in West and then everyone loves a bit of V&A.
MMmmmust go and see the Quilt Exhibition at the V&A soon. Mental Note made.

New Young Pony Club

I like this whole posting about what I'm listening to malarky. This morn on the train started with a bang and new NYPC album, The Optimist. I love it. This is Lost A Girl, the first track on the album...

Coco Sumners

There are only three Coco Sumner songs available on itunes at the mo and four on Spotify. I've had them on repeat on mipod for the past week and I'm slowly getting a bit bored of them. Below are two of them, the original version of Caesar, I Blame Coco featuring Robyn and then the Miike Snow remix which I think I prefer. There are lots more songs on Youtube but not the other one I've got, the acoustic demo of Ritalin. It's a shame, I really like it. Enjoy.

Sunday - Best Day of the Week

My dad, stepmum and 4 year old brother paid me a visit this weekend. Lovely to see them but unfortunately, they didn't tell me they were coming until Thursday. I had planned a big weekend, a few friends were having a birthday party then I was planning to host a tea party and make lots cupcakes, use my favourite Christmas present, a three tier cakestand, whip out some champagne and get some cucumber sandwiches in the mix. Due to the unexpected presence of the parentals, this was not possible.

Saturday evening and the party went well. Lots of people and a few different venues ensued including gallivanting back and forth over Battersea Bridge. I stayed at my friends' house where they live in Battersea Square.

We all woke up and the Sunday activities began. Cheap breakfast and a pint of lemonade later, headaches were banished and Emily and I made our way back over the blooming bridge to the Trafalgar for the replacement of what I was originally meant to host. We only stayed there for half an hour or so before heading back to Lucy's house on the Fulham Road for chocolate cake and a cosy bed. Here is Lucy, Anna and Emily in Lucy's bed. I would be sitting next to Lucy but reluctantly got up to take the photo.



And the top notch Asda cake...



My dad picked me up shortly after this and we went to The Ship across Wandsworth Bridge which I love, it really is a good pub.



We took the Sunday Times with us. I read, as ever, Style whilst my dad amused himself with the grown-up bits. I didn't really think that people honestly read the Money section. It was the men's issue of Style Magazine but still good. Mainly because Robert Pattinson is on the front cover and did this interview (now on my bedroom wall) but also a good interview with Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana.

The Blind Side Again

So I went to see The Blind Side last and I really enjoyed it. I won a competition through LoveFilm which got me a pair of tickets to a private screening in the Warner Brothers building near Holborn last night.

I don't really know what I was expecting, on the email that was sent to me, it said I didn't need to bring a ticket as my name was on the list. I thought there would be hundreds of people in a big cinema but I was happy to discover that it was a more intimate affair.

So my friend Sophie and I arrived to friendly Love Film people and a friendly free bar. We chatted to some people and then were shown in to the screening room. It was like a cosy cinema, a very big screen with about 25 or 30 big leather armchairs.

I really enjoyed the film. It's the first time in a while where I haven't been to see a film without hearing a thousand reviews beforehand which usually instill doubt and give me a bad outlook on the film. I was expecting it to be very sad and a bit soppy. Again, my expectations proved to be way off the mark. It was emotive, Sandra Bullock did a great job of portraying the hard exterior and rock of the familiy whilst showing through a huge wealth of emotion that the real Leigh Anne must be made of. Sandra Bullock has proved before that she can do the comedy thing to, and there were some hilarious lines and moods in the film giving it a much lighter image than I had expected.

Defintely worth a trip to Cineworld. Or a subscription to LoveFilm.

The Blind Side

I've managed to land myself tickets to a private screening of The Blind Side tonight. The London Premiere isn't until 23rd March. I'm rather excited.



Sandra Bullock won the Oscar for Best Actress for her role in it as Leigh Anne Tuohy, a role which took John Lee Hancock a year to convince her to take. It's based on the true story of the protagonist Micheal Oher (Qinton Aaron) and Leigh Anne Tuohy. Leigh Anne Tuohy takes in Oher when she finds him after he's been kicked out of home wandering the streets. There's something about football in there too (the American version that has nothing to do with feet, that is) and that's all I really know so far. Watch this space.

There was a lovely interview with her in the Sunday Times Style yesterday where she'd gone back to her normal dark hair. I wasn't really a fan of the blonde in the Blind Side. This one of the pictures from Style yesterday:



And the film:

POP up

Just found David Browning's site with marvels such as these bad boys:



And this:



I do love pop up books. There is the most amazing pop up Pirate Ship that we sell at work which I actually gave to my little brother for Christmas last year. It's a lovely gift idea from Handpicked Collection and really went down very well. To be honest, I don't know very many four year olds who don't like pirates, treasure hunts and giant squids especially when they pop out of a book to be half a metre tall.

Goodwood

House of Faye Goodwood. It's definitely something to aspire to. Ranging from furniture, fashion, installations, window displays to zebras, chanderliers and massive warehouse spaces its just all so exciting! And no wonder projects include Liberty, Habitat and Dover Street Market just off the top of my head. It really is a stunner. I don't want to become someone who 'finds interior design spaces that inspire me' but these really are amaazing.



This is cool too



and may have something to do with justifying these glasses I just bought from Bitching and Junkfood. That's not me by the way, their image.



And anyway, everyone loves a good zebra.

Affordable Art Fair - Battersea Park

The time is nigh for Battersea Park's Affordable Art Fair. Conveniently enough for me its right round the corner from work. Bonus. Within the depths of SW you will find artwork ranging in price from £50 to £3000. I’m not really planning on investing in a masterpiece from the Delaroche of tomorrow but I think it will definitely be worth a visit. Ticket prices are pushing the boundaries of my wallet anyway. I plan to pop in on my lunch break which allows a weekday discount. The fair runs from today (Thursday 11th March) until Sunday 14th March, from 11am until 6pm. Ticket are available on the door for £12 on a weekday and £15 on the weekend.
I’ll let you know how it goes.

Great Little Place

Great Little Place is a great little site that started out not that long ago on Facebook. They've very recently (last week or so) banged up a proper website. There are a few kinks in the armour still but it's defo worth a look.

Originally, it was just in London, great for me and the other 8 million who live here, but I assume that someone somewhere must have felt left out so they expanded to include other parts of the country.

What's so lovely about it is that the whole site is made up of viewer input. The idea is that if you find a cool place like a great pub or cosy tearoom then comment or send them an email, they then go check 'em out and publish reviews about the best ones. They also credit the person who gave them the tip. Sharing is caring, drugs are hugs and all that.

This is the link to the newsletter sign up as well.

Movie Downloads

Ok so, my friend has just introduced me to this and it's very likely that I have been massively slow on the uptake but anyways. ZML.com lets you download really recent movies and there's a one day trial for $0.99 where you can get ten movies. Yes, its American but they are English movies to work in the UK and the movies are really recent ones like Alice in Wonderland (I know I said I wouldn't talk about it, but it is taking over the world), Shutter Island, Precious, Avatar and New Moon. Shotgun. Click here for the link again just incase you missed it first time round.

Glacial Lagerfield Chanel

Watch out, there's a glacier behind you.

McQueen Paris Fashion Week

As I write this, a select group of invite only editors are watching 16 Alexander McQueen's pieces come down the catwalk. His last collection he made before his death in February. It's the most anticipated show of all the Fashion Weeks, here's an image that I found. The coat is made entirely of guilded feathers:



SO exciting!!!!!

Mad Milliners and 3D Glasses

I went to see Alice in Wonderland last night and wasn't particularly enthralled. Style over content. I think my favourite thing was the Red Queen's castle. The plot was massively predictable and as a result I felt little empathy for any of the characters. Visually, it's magnificent. The other thing is that it's so violent. I am a complete sucker for the books and to a certain extent the Disney film, both of which are full of lovely jubbly imagery and good old fashioned p's and q's; Tim Burton's version is all a bit dark and angry for me.
Having said that, there is a ridiculous happy clappy dance at the end which I'm sure I have completely missed the wagon on but it really was random.
I think its defo worth an outing to the nearest picture house but not as fun as I was expecting.

Well, at least we can all stop talking about bloody Alice in Wonderland now. Thank God for that.

Boden?

I'm not usually a fan but when an insert mini catalgue came through with the Sunday Times two weeks ago, I was tempted by these babies:

Lucy in Disguise - Lily Allen

I'm super excited for Lily Allen's new take in her career - a fashion line. She has hung up her dancing shoes for some office courts and is currently sourcing hoards of designer dresses to rent out to the public for mere pittance of their worth. She's calling the shop Lucy in Disguise and she's being helped out by her sister. The line of vintage dresses is set to be launched at Wayne Hemingway’s Vintage Goodwood Festival (pretty excited about this too!).

A great idea, yes, but admittedly not an original one. The clever people at Girl Meets Dress have been going for a while; they've been on the radar since they popped up in the London Paper last year.

Lily Allen has kept the rest of the details under wraps and that’s fine by me; as long as she injects some of her own style into her stock. I am a slight Lily obsessive. Having had a good needed bump in the direction of a new stylist in 2006, she went from flouncy prom dresses, Nikes and astronaut helmets to Karl Lagerfield, all the Chanel that goes with it and well a respected fashion following of her own.



This is a recent picture (below) of her at the launch of Wayne Hemingway’s Vintage Goodwood Festival where Lily will showcase her new range this summer.

It's a Good Sunday

I've just made it home from a friend's house after what one could call a rather heavy night. Great way to sort out a hangover is to walk along the river. I went with a friend on a jaunt through Battersea Park and we sat on a bench in the glorious sunshine that has graced us with its presence today. Then I crossed the river as she went back to Battersea Square and I headed back to my neck of the woods.
As is not only tradition, but a compulsory activity on a Sunday, I bought the Sunday Times. Its the only paper I ever spend money on and have surfaced from many a Saturday night in my pyjamas and gone to buy the paper from the lovely man at the newsagents round the corner. He always looks at me slightly warily but he saves me a copy if I'm running late. If I'm being honest, I only really buy it for the magazines. Sunday Times Style Magazine is my bible and I tend to consume several hours reading that and the Culture for the rest of the week.
So back to the activity of the day; I've got my Style, I've had a bath, put on my pyjamas and The Aristocats. All before 4pm, perfectamundo.
I was extra specially excited to get my hands on todays specific edition of Style because its the swanky big fashion issue. Literally itching to finish reading it. Super duper.

Chris Ofili

Even though it was 2 weeks ago that I went to see the Chris Ofili exhibition at the Tate, I enjoyed it so much that I thought I should shout about it again. (Already put something up at Handpicked).

Unsurprisingly, there were a LOT of people there when I went mid-afternoon on a Saturday. It really didn't matter though because these pieces are so huge in size and character you could see them from space. The point of them I think is to use crude materials (Ofili made a name for himself when he won the Turner Prize in 2008 and his signature elephant poo pictures which were showed here too), dress them up and make them into something that people appreciate and want to be around. They're so big and beautiful, adorned with glitter, bright colours and layers of materials, it makes them so engaging.

This is defo my fave, Afrodizzia:

Blog Love X

I added the Blog Love X list t'other day. This will henceforth be populated by all the blogs and sites that I love. Original idea, no. There's a whole load that I could list on there straight away but that's no fun so I might go at it one of a time and do a wee review of each. We've already got Handpicked, but in that case, I may be biased.
SO second on the list is Bitching and Junkfood. Defo one of my fave blogs content-wise. It's how I heard about the Chris Ofili exhibition that I immensely enjoyed two weeks ago. They are based in Hackney I think, and even in the last year, change and expansion for the good is easy to see; I'm sure they'll be massive. I've spent quite a lot of money on their site and some of my favourite pieces in my wardrobe are from there. So much so, I feel a bit protective about sharing it. Recent acquisitions include this amaazing blazer:


I actually placed an order earlier this week and I'm super excited about getting my hands on these beauties:

Handpicked Collection

Now I must admit the reason I started the blog (other than the fact that really do love Jelly but more on that at a later date) is because I manage the blog at work and I found myself posting more about places that I wanted to go and things that I wanted to see that perhaps weren't as relevant as they could have been to Handpicked Collection.
It seems appropriate though to link to it. There is some interesting stuff on there, most intriguing are the interviews from Handpicked's friends including tips from stylist Lucinda Maydon, recipes from Masterchef winner, tellie chef and owner of Wahaca Thomasina Miers and tips for all sorts from Handpicked's Creative Director and resident Domestic Goddess, Amanda Fox. Not forgetting some ideas from yours truly to fill in the gaps. I feel sort of like I'm cheating on Handpicked Blog with this one so let's show it some love.

Spring has Sprung

I know it’s a bold statement and I don’t claim to have my facts straight about the rest of the country but these last two days have definitely seen Londoners with a bouncier spring in their step. I’ve shed a layer of clothing and the sky has been as blue as a saxaphone.

I’ve recently halved my wardrobe in honour of the occasion, presenting myself with a top notch occasion to go shopping. The afore mentioned trip to Selfridges gave way to an inevitable trip to the other shops on my way from Marble Arch tube to Oxford Circus. I went to a couple of different places and came out with purple things from each. I have no idea why. The only reason I can think of is the influence from my reading material and adverts around me. It scares me no end how much I can be influenced without realising it. Admittedly, the first purple thing I bought was some lilac nail varnish from Illamasqua in Selfridges and I do remember seeing something similar on an Asos newsletter recently. Others included some lilac skinnies from Uniqlo and a funtassley top from Topshop which I can think of no link to.





Here's the nail varnish, with a wee bit of gold.



But back to the point that I was originally trying to make, if not rather long windedly. (Windedly – I don’t think that’s a real word. Is now. Ha.)

Nails, and I am sure this has been said elsewhere, are the accessory of Spring. Fashion Week (London, obviously; no other FW matters apart from the one in closest proximity) saw WAH Nails with their pop-up shop (who can be quoted to say ‘Square is so over’, just FYI) in Tosho, not to mention the obsession that is Chanel Particulière, there has been a recent post on the Vogue Beauty Blog

referencing Margarita Belska’s Kinetics nail brand and after some very skint research this HOH nail art is pretty hot shit too.



The pastel opaque colours are everywhere.
It does baffle me slightly as to why nail varnish can have women wrestle, scratching and brawling over Chanel counters to get their hands on the latest fad. I’m sure this will be the case in May when Nouvelle Vague graces us with its presence. I suppose it must be down to the R word (recession, bleurgh, a now a cliché in its own right); if you can’t afford the Chanel handbag, get the nail varnish. Hell yeah.

Alice in Wonderland Mania

I thought I'd start off with something that seems to have taken the world by storm.

It's official, Alice in Wonderland Fever has taken the world by storm. With the new Tim Burton film due out in the next few days (March 5th to be precise) it has become the inspiration behind many a fad of late.

The film has the standard Burton duo - Johnny Depp and Burton's wife Helen Bonham Carter. The rest of the cast includes some great British actors too - Matt Lucas as Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Alan Rickman as the Caterpillar, Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat, Timothy Spall as a Bloodhound and Barbara Windsor (!) as the dormouse. The cast also includes Anne Hathaway, Michael Sheen and Christopher Lee. Tim Burton and Helen Bonham Carter's children also have cameo roles. This is the sixth feature film that Depp and Burton have worked on together, There's quite good interview done by Fearne Cotton.

There was a lovely interview in the Sunday Times Culture this weekend just gone with Mia Wasikowska who plays the nineteen-year-old Alice. She is now about to embark on the filming of Jane Eyre in which she plays the title role.

I paid a visit to Selfridges this weekend specifically to go to the Alice in Wonderland pop up shop. The shop had the most beautiful old Lewis Carroll first editions of Alice's various adventures. Please excuse the dodgy photos, juggling Blackberry camera and shopping I can't afford whilst trying to avoid deadly elbow shoves from angry Saturday Oxford Street shoppers didn't leave much room for my inexperienced photographic eye to shine through.

There are also these Mad Hatter/Johnny Depp Barbies:

Anna Lou had specially designed some teapot pendants in her signature style alongside the Queen's Head ones which have been around for a while. Unfortunately didn't manage to swipe a snap of the teapots because I got a bit scared of the sales lady giving me dodgy looks but here is an image of the Queen's Head one.

There are also the most incredible hats which are illustrated by a particularly bad photo here but I feel it should get shown.

What also gets me super excited about a trip to Selfridges is the window displays and the Mad Hatter's tea party theme definitely didn't disappoint.