IsabelleOC

Breton me up Scotty

Isabelle — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:52:23 +0000

Substitute the skirt for a pair of jeans and you’ve got my everyday working from home outfit right there. Not to say that I’m in a rut or anything, but I’m wearing a lot of the same kind of stuff at the moment. Having a post-house move edited wardrobe, or what Fashionising are called the ‘curated wardrobe’ has been quite freeing, my workday outfits are basically a variation on a uniform.

It gets a little harder when you actually have to leave the house, which is where my lace skirt (ace Streatham charity shop find) and surprise gift necklace (thank you Moxham!) come in. I recently did a shoot and the brief was ‘wear something bright’, so you can imagine that it was a leetle bit of a struggle…

Coat: Hobbs, jumper: COS, necklace: Moxham, skirt: charity shop, shoes: New Look.

If you’re wondering what my smug smile is all about, I’m wearing Heat Tech knitted shorts under that skirt, hawt, liderally.

Studio Visit: Myriam Girard Lingerie

Isabelle — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:47:58 +0000

Myriam Girard‘s studio is inside her SE1 home, which has great views of the London skyline; from the roof you can see the Tower of London, as well as the Gherkin and Cheesegrater. Myriam is a charming host, offering me Mariage Frères tea and some vin santo and waves away my hesitation with the explanation of ‘it’s Friday!’

We sit down with cannolis and chat about her move from events and PR to setting up her own company. A friend of a friend, we met last year and bonded over a love of fabrics and our Frenchy status. She’s a warm and effervescent person, which I guess are qualities you need when you’re selling something as intimate as underwear. Her French accent makes every word she says sound nice, even the words ‘butt crack’, which she says. A lot! We end up on the roof snapping pictures of her pieces as the sun sets, trying to not let them fly away…

Do you think there’s a difference between the way that English and French women wear lingerie?
Here they don’t mind being a little more sexy with their lingerie, brands like Agent Provocateur do well because English people like this kind of sexy. French people are more classic, they wouldn’t buy something peekaboo, but in another way the French like the frills and the lace, it’s part of the culture.

I bought my first suspender belt with my mum, I didn’t even have a boyfriend but it’s part of your heritage to have lingerie.
The word comes from linge (linen/cloth), when you get married you get linge with it, you make yourself a bridal trousseau, you embroider your bedsheets and you and your family make your linge de nuit, your nightclothes, so it’s probably a tradition that has lived on.

Whereas in England if you buy lingerie it’s ‘I want to look sexy for a guy’ but in France it’s more, I buy it because I am sexy?
Yes! The white bra… the nude bra… What for? I want to see some lace! It doesn’t matter if it shows through a tee-shirt.

What inspires you with your collections?
Most of the time I get inspired by paintings of women in general, I do like the idea of everything that started from the Art Nouveau movement with people like Klimt. When women stopped wearing corsets and started wearing things that fit on the body but didn’t restrain them. I make everything cut on the bias so I want everything to float and look nice on the body, but I don’t anyone to be squeezed or feel uncomfortable. Everybody’s got something to hide, so it’s good when you feel nice the way you are, I like those little slips. It’s crepe de chine which I sandwash for that peachy effect and then you can wear that, in the US they wear it under a wrap dress with a bit of lace showing through.

It’s the same idea with the teddy it’s nice and comfortable, you can adjust it if you want, it’s very sexy because you can show a bit of the hip, it’s relaxed. It’s more sexy than when you do it over the top. It’s to feel good with what you have, you don’t have to be someone else.

What’s the type of lace you use?
It’s the French leavers lace, it actually comes from England, made around the Industrial North of England and they invented a machine that replicates the movement of the hand in the 1800s because lace sue dto be made by hand. So they made a traditional machine and you make the lace with those machine, and because they starting raising taxes and the production was too expensive so they moved it to Calais, the production stopped in England and the French took over. But technically the Brits invented it!

And you select your colours yourself, what about the red?
That’s my colour, I made it. You know when you have berries, crushed berries in the summer. So what I tried to do with the colours, if you don’t wear makeup it’s fine. I just want women to be themselves and feel good, so you can wear it in the morning and if you don’t have any makeupyou still look good. It’s like the blush pink as well, it still looks good and flatters the skin, there’s nothing harsh or too bright.

Are you always in matching underwear?
I don’t wear matching bra and knickers, not that often. Perhaps if I know I’m going out and I have a nice dress, it’s not for a guy, it’s more the idea of the whole outfit, it’s nice to have.

In France what’s sexy we say it’s not what you can see, it’s what what you can guess, so see a peek of lace a little strap, you can imagine, so it’s the whole idea of sensuality, rather than ‘hello! I’m here’ So that’s what I try to do with my brand, being sexy is more in your head than your outfit. It’s more the woman that wears the lingerie and presents it how she feels, rather than the lingerie making the woman.

Myriam Girard lingerie

Viktor & Rolf launch Spicebomb for men

Isabelle — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:09:43 +0000

Spicebomb Viktor and Rolf’s new scent for men is a little bit darker and muskier than Flowerbomb its female counterpart, but that’s no bad thing. I love to steal men’s scents, overly sweet smells just ain’t my thing, I’d much rather go for a musky, woody, traditionally ‘male’ smell.

Launched with a bang and an explosion of silver glitter in an ominous car park just minutes from Soho, Spicebomb is the kind of scent you’d describe as ‘darkly seductive’ without a hint of embarrassment. It marries pink peppercorns, chilli and saffron with more traditional tobacco and wood components. There’s a hint of freshness provided by the bergamot which stops it from becoming too cloying.

The bottle is a James Bond-esque grenade shape, with smoked glass which is a pretty practical bonus. The ‘pin’ you release to spray the scent is both a nice detail and brilliant idea for travel and comes with the Viktor & Rolf logo dangling off the side.

Spicebomb is available exclusively in Harrods until March when you’ll be able to get it nationwide.

Namaaste Kitchen, Camden

Isabelle — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:15:56 +0000

Namaaste restaurant is on Camden’s busy Parkway and you could be forgiven for walking straight past it, which is what I did. Once inside it’s all modern decor and fancy lighting. Word to the wise, or as my teacher used to say ‘Avis aux amateurs’, wearing a tight leather skirt really isn’t a good idea for a dinner with a dozen dishes, next time I’m wearing something with an elasticated waist.

The first starter was Patthar Ka Gosht, which is marinated mutton cooked on a hot stone and then simmered in milk until tender. This dish was a meltingly soft piece of meat and stood up to the Merlot Tannat it was paired with. The Reshmi kebab was really fresh, the proportion of chicken to coriander and ginger kept this really light and green.

Tripe is one of those things I always say to myself I’ll never eat, but actually I’m much less squeamish than I’d like to think and will happily give anything a try. Chakna is a Hyderabadi speciality consisting of meat and tripe. Tripe is something my grandparents would bring over in their suitcase and my sister and I would watch wide-eyed as my parents wolfed it down, but I never tried it.
Namaaste’s version was made with goat, quite daintily served on a thick slice of mooli which really complimented the flavours. They springy tripe did take a little getting used but it was really quite delicious, with chunks of falling-apart goat and the crunch of the radish.

Patthar Ka Gosht

Reshmi Chicken Kebab

Chakna

The mains arrived, a Hyderabadi Murg Ki Pakki Biryani with soft plump cashews, a fragrant and light Malai Chicken Tikka, the Khatti Machli which was a grilled sea bream with a smoky sweet tomato and tamarind sauce to compliment the soft fish. I love a Bhindi Gosht and this one was rich and meaty with spices tingling on the tongue and perfect okra. I didn’t get a picture of the Baghara Baigun, a lovely dish of stuffed aubergines stuffed with coconut, peanuts cumin, ginger and tamarind which was full of creamy and smoky flavours.

Green Pepper Curry

Murg Ki Pakki Biryani and Bhindi Gosht

By this point we were all a little delirious from the amounts of food consumed, I think my tastebuds were a bit overwhelmed from all the flavours but at no point did I feel carbed out, as the dishes we ate were actually quite light. The Khubani Ka Meetha dessert came out, without the traditional cream but after a meal of this proportion I was quite grateful! This incarnation consisted of stewed almonds in sweet syrup with orange zest and pistachios and it came served with a Noble Semillon dessert wine that complimented the fruit flavours to perfection. It’s amazing what a little burst of sugar can do as I left with a little skip in my step and certainly not feeling like I’d just had an epic feast of Christmas-time proportions.

Namaaste is a great place for fine Indian cuisine, my tip would be to share a main course and get a few starters so you can try out as many flavours as possible, or better still go with a big group and order up a storm.

Namaaste Kitchen, 64 Parkway, Camden.

Sea Bass in Tomato Tamarind Sauce

Khatti Machli

Khubani Ka Meetha

Inside the Moxham Studio

Isabelle — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:57:03 +0000

My Moxham studio visit is up here for you to see, this is where I grilled Madeleine on her favourite South London haunts and other very important things, like how she takes her tea and what her favourite biscuit is…

Can you tell me 5 fun things to do in South London things?
- Dinner at Brixton Market
- Wondering around South London Gallery & then to the cafe for beef sandwiches
- Drinks at Franks in the summer as the sun goes down!
- Shopping for oddities at Persepolis.
- Exploring local houses during the Open House weekend.

5 favourite songs to listen to while you work?
Sunday Girl – Love U More
The Notorious BIG – Juicy
Finley Quaye – Sunday Shining
Beyonce – Love on top
Stan Getz – The girl from Ipanema

What’s your method for the perfect cuppa?
Strong but milky- definitely no sugar!

Best biscuit?
The more chocolate the better although I love a pink wafer.

What’s your favourite typeface?
Impossible to choose- depends on the project… the beauty of working seasonally- a different typeface for a different collection! The MOXHAM logo uses Gotham which I like for its simplicity and regularity.

Sunday Sundries: home comforts

Isabelle — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:18:11 +0000

This week’s Sunday Sundries is pretty domesticated, think I’m doing a bit of pre-fashion week hibernation. The Clerk Ink Well print above I spotted as a recommendation from India Knight and posted it up on my Christmas Gift Guide and now it’s in my hallway. Thanks Faf, Frince and Mia! It’s just the thing to take the twee down a notch from the bird embroideries, I think they’re perfect for each other.

Fleur du Matin by Miller Harris is an uplifting green/herbaceous smell with a soft neroli floral. Such a lovely scent for Spring.

We’ve been getting crafty at home, love my flatmate’s knitting skills and I’m making patchwork.

Foxwatch! My new obsession is watching the foxes that appear in our back garden, here they are sunning themselves.

Recipe: US Style Skillet Eggs

Isabelle — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 09:25:46 +0000

I woke up with a real craving for a US-style breakfast on Friday, I was specifically craving Ella’s skillet eggs. I don’t think I will ever forget them, not least because I was out of my mind on jet lag when I ate them, but also because the hearty combo of eggs, potato, peppers and cheese was the best way to start the day. When I was over skillet breakfasts seemed to be all the rage, second to oyster bars on the New York food trends.

It’s the perfect dish to use up all all that slightly dodgy end of the week veg, I used a sad-looking courgette and some over-ripe tomatoes but you can vary the recipe according to what you have lying around. You need a really good nonstick pan, because you want all the lovely crsipy bits of potato and bubbling bits of cheese to go onto your plate, not stay stuck on the bottom of the pan.

Ingredients:
3 small potatoes, courgette, 4 mushrooms, 2 tomatoes, shallot, spring onion, two eggs, cheddar. Herbs, salt and pepper to taste. Serves two.

Method:
Cut all your ingredients into small chunks, including the cheese. Parboil the potatoes and then drain and salt. Heat some oil in a skillet or heavy bottomed pan and fry the potatoes. Do not stir too much, you want the potato to get all crispy and browned. Remove from pan and set aside.

Fry the shallots, add in the mushrooms and courgettes and cover to cook through. Once the courgette is soft stir in the tomatom spring onion and cheese. Then make little dips for the eggs to sit in and crack them into the pan. Cover and allow to cook until the eggs are done.

Serve with hot sauce and buttered toast on the side. For a totally authentic Yank experience make yourself a weak coffee with half and half (a mix of cream and milk), cheers!

Studio Visit: Moxham

Isabelle — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:31:09 +0000

This is the second Studio Visit of the year and another South London label, Moxham (I’m not biased, honest!) Madeleine Moxham designs what she calls ‘wearable construction’, bold but simple statement accessories. I went to her Camberwell home to find out a bit more about her…

Does the creative gene run in the family?
My mum went to art school when she was younger and dropped out for various reasons and is a Social Worker but she does lino cutting and that kind of stuff, my dad is a doctor. There’s three of us, daughters, my older sister is an architect and my little sister has graduated in set design. None of us got the doctor gene!

You’re from London but you chose to study in Leeds and Nottingham
I’ve lived in London my whole life but now I do feel like Leeds and Nottingham are both a bit like home. My friends are here in London, so I thought if I stay here I’ll just hang out with the same friends. I’m really glad I went away, I don’t regret it in any way. They’re lovely to visit and it’s just nice making connections, in February and March going back to Nottingham to do some workshops and lectures with the MA group and I’m going back to Leeds to do talks with the students.

I soon realised you’re only going to get as much out of it as you put in. A lot of people on my course were there to have a really great time, which was fine because I was there to have a really great time as well, but I realised quite quickly I was serious about it and wanted to do as well as I possibly could. Some of the things that they were showing us to do, the way to draw or whatever wasn’t quite the way I worked, for some people that was stressful, whereas if you just worked really hard and came to it in a different way then it didn’t matter. My teachers were no longer saying ‘you haven’t done it, you haven’t ticked these boxes’.

It was a really nice learning curve when I realised I could do things in a roundabout way so when I did my MA I had quite a lot of confidence.

Tell me more about your MA
I actually did MA Decorative Arts, which is a rubbish title but I said I’d like to make constructed jewellery and accessories, what course should I do? You can use the sculpture and fashion studios so it didn’t have the limitations. Before that I came back to London and I worked 6 months for Aquascutum, which was really interesting. I was pretty much always at a desk, there was a lot of practical know-how, range planning, going up to their factory in Corby, doing fits there which was amazing.

Then I went to work for Felder Felder, in their house in West London. I was probably there for 5 months, by the end I was kind of in charge of the team, it’s a small team but it meant I’d be making a press piece, another day I might be going to an exhibition to look at some spring summer inspiration, when I was leaving I helped interview for interns, 100 people turned up! They were snaking out of this West London flat.

Again, I look back at that time, the amount that I learnt from being at a small company, you learn a bit of everything. I then moved to Nottingham and worked for a branding agency, and thought ‘this is totally unrelated’, but in terms of what I learnt, fantastic. We worked with really big clients like Carlsberg, it taught you to meet with people who are kind of terrifying but it’s a lot about presentation as well. Managing to put down information and digest it and help with rebranding their logo or whatever. Which is why when I did the MA it was really important for me to look at branding and the whole.

How did you come up with the brand and the logo?
I started using my name on the blog and it was working quite well, visually the M and the X are really strong. I love Aesop’s work, it’s so unisex and international and I don’t want to have that feminine boutique feel, I wanted it to look more international. So I worked with a branding agency on the logo. I wanted it to be geometric shapes, monochrome, Rodarte and APC typography, all those things together you can see. I love the repetition of my shapes to make something quite simple and wearable, you build it up to make a statement piece.

How did you get started and selling?
Bengt saw me at new Designers and got in touch just as I was finishing my MA which was a great learning curve as well because I had to think about pricing delivery times etc. They were brilliant, I started working with them quite small but now I’m selling really well through them and they’re lovely. For LFW we’ve got some exclusives that will be interesting. For London Fashion Week there’s gonna be some accessories I’m gonna do, some specific colourways, target some bloggers who want to push it further. I’m going to be doing some oversized bags and accessories for Spring Summer.

I’m not a particularly conceptual designer, I’ll sit and work things out I really like it and go back and compile things contextual research, but generally it’s sitting down and working it through. I think it’s something to do with the people I want to design for, who aren’t necessarily a certain age. You’re not just going to put it on and forget about it. I hope to introduce a selection of clothing down the line anyway, when I’m designing it a see it as a finished product, how I would style it.

Which designers inspire you?
I love the aesthetics of Acne and the Scandinavian look. I love the branding of APC and things like that because they’re pared down and international and not too boutiquey. In terms of designs I love Rodarte, they’re incredible, the Ricardo Tisci stuff for Givenchy is also incredible you can’t even comprehend the craft that goes into it. The kind of woman they’re working for is very stylish but not too feminine, really contemporary even if they’re using old-school techniques.

Who is the woman you are designing for?
It wouldn’t necessarily have to be age-related, I did a quick shoot with my mum on the blog to show it doesn’t really have to be a specific age. When I studied design they said ‘don’t design for yourself’, but I do now design for myself and my friends because why not? And the way my friends wear the pieces is really interesting, what they do with it, how they style it going out.

Age doesn’t even apply anymore really, the kind of person who will wear my stuff is going to wear it whether they’re 20 or 50 because they’re the kind of pieces that have longevity. Kind of like Celine, who make beautiful clothes that are simple but not at all faddy.

You’ve got a blog on your site, what is it about the medium you like?
I get lots of emails from lots of different people, and it’s lovely to get feedback and hear other people’s point of view. Certainly because we’re all on the internet and have blogging in common, you always communicate with people and are thinking of interesting projects to do.

Marni Winter Edition 2012

Isabelle — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:47:46 +0000

Marni’s Winter Edition is a smorgasbord of textures and prints, I love it. It’s slowly kicking me out of my classic/minimal phase I’m in at the moment, otherwise known as ‘I still haven’t properly unpacked all my clothes’, I want to tear things out of my wardrobe and pile them on with lashings on bold jewellery. Really loving eccentric old lady moment the fashion world is having, I can totally get on board with that.

I’m particularly enamoured with the sheer coral business going on up top, but also mentally configuring tartan possibilities. Severely crushing on the flat DM-like ballet shoes and the gold bow pumps up top, swoon.

BTW - Everytime I think of Marni I get a mental blast of the O’Jays much-sampled song ‘For The Love Of Money’, and start singing the word Marni along to all the ‘money’. Anyone else? Anyway, here are the O’Jays doing their thing on Soul Train:

Karl Lagerfeld launches ‘Karl’ with NET A PORTER

Isabelle — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:02:26 +0000

‘Karl’, the new range by Karl Lagerfeld conceived especially for NET A PORTER was launched yesterday at their Westfield offices. The range is quite classic, with a base of hi-shine fabrics in silver lamé, sequins and wet-look. Classic tailoring is given the Karl touch with shirts, tuxedo-style jackets and carrot-leg trousers.

Humourous pieces like the collars and tees have little Karl motifs, a profile shot of sunglasses and backcombed ponytail. In my Catwalk Queen days we loved Karl Lagerfeld so much we had a weekly Karl quote. For fans of Le Lagerfeld this is a great way to pick up a piece of Karl and with prices starting at £50 there’s something for everyone. The collection launches worldwide on the 25th with events in Paris, New York, Berlin and Sydney, find out when Team Karl is coming to your town here.