My SD card is groaning under the weight of a million press day pictures and I haven’t even got through PFW yet, not to mention LFW… Since mid-feb I’ve managed to take 1400 pictures aka the whole of an 8gb memory card, eek! Here’s some images from my week.
 Margaret Howell is a brand I feel a real affinity with, so much so that at their press day last week they served up some rustic-looking Bakewell tarts, how did they know I love a good Bakewell? More on their press day to follow…
 I went to an event at the Chophouse on Butler’s Wharf, some fantastic food and a lovely sunset to boot. Lots of champagne too, hence my excited tweets about Morris dancers.
 Michael Kors sunnies at Modus press day, I’m still processing all the new collections and amazing brands I’ve been seeing, for some more timely press day updates check out my posts over at MPD Click’s Trend Journal.
 Some gratuitous MeatLiquor pics, just because. I’m still a bit annoyed at the central location because it = more queues and more wankers, but that still doesn’t stop me from stuffing my face till I want to be sick. This was shared with two other friends and then we somehow managed to fit in a dessert each. Ooof!
This time last year, my French grandfather passed away quite suddenly. I’d been thinking for a while the best way to commemorate the day, my grandmother will be holding prayers tomorrow in France but as we can’t be with her I wanted to do something.
 My grandfather Emile, far right, with my grandmother, his children and assorted relatives.
Emile was a really gentle man, one who could patiently sit and teach me the cosine rule as well as ham it up with some Bill Cosby-style dad dancing. The first child of a health-conscious mother, I was for a few years banned from eating butter or sugar, so he’d surreptitiously slip me sugar lumps when my mum wasn’t looking, saying ‘you’re a child, you need sugar’. The privations of growing up during the war never really left either of my grandparents, Emile would often snatch the rind of fat from your ham if you were leaving it, and they both passed on an absolute loathing of wasting food to me.
Some of my fondest memories are in their kitchen, watching my papi prepare a delicious steak haché, chopping onions in a vest because of the summer heat. We all still laugh at their insistence on eating fruit even if you’re fit to burst (which was often), because ‘c’est de l’eau!’ (it’s just water!) The first time I went to see them on my own I was five and I cried the whole time on the plane home.
To remember my papi, last night my sister and I cooked up a storm, making some of the favourite dishes we used to eat over in Toulouse. It’s a bit of a bummer, because the raw ingredients you get in the UK are never going to match up to things like Toulouse sausagemeat, or fresh tomatoes, but we improvised and muddled through. The dishes are all family food, this isn’t fine cooking but rather the kinds of food you grow up with and attach strong memories to.
Eating at my grandparents is a very ritualised affair, with certain things at certain times and plenty of courses, of course. I’m not really sure how my French experience matches up with your average French person, I doubt that my generation of people still eat in this ceremonial way but we went for it. There’s something really special about a proper meal, shared round the table and the French seem to be particularly good at it. ‘A table!’ they’ll say, rather than ‘dinner’s ready!’
Continue reading Recipe: A French Meal for Papi
I’ve never had dreadlocks and I’d rather die than play fire poi, but underneath it all I’m quite a hippy. I cycle, eat brown rice A LOT and bank ethically, but it’s all below-the-surface, right-where-it-matters, hippy stylings.
Katrien Van Hecke‘s AW12 collection tickled my inner hippy sensibilites, her clothes are dyed entirely with natural rather than man-made substances, but you wouldn’t exactly be running to wear them to Burning Man. Katrien uses nettles and spices to colour her clothes, but the results are far from drab, bright yellows, soft pinks and cosy blues all combine to varying degrees.
It’s the luxuriousness of her clothes that set her apart from basic eco-aesthetics, the maxi skirts with their criss-cross panelling and soft colours instill a kind of longing that might only be cured by some primal scream therapy or a prayer to Gaia, you know what I’m saying? I love the fluid, draped shapes of her dresses and tunics, the spattered patterns taking on an abstract life of their own. It’s like staring at clouds (ma-an), you can imagine all sorts in the spatters.
Katrien’s showroom was a Belgian haven from all the Paris Fashion Week Frenchness. She gave me a warm welcome as she explained her pre-industry working methods. Before I left Katrien even gave me a little sample of spice to take away with me, a sweet and warm-hearted touch.
I coined the term ‘hippycrite’ at university for all the people whose fathers had just paid for their dreads. Being a hippy on the outside is really quite dull, but Katrien Van Hecke marries traditional and long-lost techniques with an eye for the elegant.
Spring has sprung! It’s officially time for us Brits to spend time outside drinking alcohol which is exactly what I did today in the garden with a huge bowl of baba ganoush for company. Here’s a peek at some lovely spring things that made my weekend.  My new DVF pochette was a Bicester buy, I had eyed it up the last time I was there and I swooped in on it, love the blue and white pattern, it’s got me thinking of Japanese shibori prints.
 Yayoi Kusama nails courtesy of Boom Nails at the Tate on Saturday, it was part of their Infinite Kusama event which also included a Secret Disco set by Actress. Got a bit green-eyed as well as green-nailed (LOL) as my nails were a little shaky, but my sister’s nails (pictured) turned out awesome. Sibling jealousy!
 Springtime has me going for one of my old favourite perfume combinations, Lush’s Karma and Origins’ Ginger Essence make a zingy, fresh team with the Karma adding a musky hit of patchouli.
 Thinking of defecting to the iPhone crew, seems to be a bit of a sea change at the moment among HTC users. I think I’d probably need a phone cover like this one if I did, right? Amazing.
This recipe comes to you by popular demand from Wolf Whistle, it’s not so much a recipe as ‘what can I make for dinner?’ The rice is a variation on the spiced rice I have made before and the grated salad is a brilliant side veg for summer which goes with anything from summer rolls to fish, meat and soups. As soon as there’s a hint of sun it gets made about once a fortnight in our house. I usually mix mooli/daikon with carrot and courgette, it’s really tasty, really quick and a good way of upping your veg intake for the day. Side note: I was once told by a herbalist to try to eat 3 veg at lunch and dinner and it’s a good rule to try to stick to for healthytimes. I added a deliciously crispy fried egg as I’d been cycling and swimming and had the hunger of ten men.
Ingredients:
Spicy rice:
Small onion
Fill base of pan with brown rice (basmati pref)
Handful of puy lentils
1/2 stock cube
chilli flakes, pepper, cumin seeds, celery salt, smoked paprika
Grated salad:
1 mooli, 2 carrots, 1 courgette
Sesame oil, lemon juice
For the rice, slice the onion into thin slices and fry with the chilli and cumin seeds. Once they have browned add the rice and stir in the rest fo the spices then add water and the lentils. All you have to do is let this bubble away for 30-40 mins until done, keep tasting and seasoning. The spices I’ve put down are just a mix of earthy, full-bodied flavours but you can add others according to your own taste.
The grated salad is so easy, just chuck all the veggies through a food processor using a fine grate blade as you want it all to be pliable not crunchy. Add sesame oil or olive if you dont have it and some lemon juice just to get all the flavours mixing.
I served it with my crispy fried egg, more smoked paprika and a little yoghurt and it more than did the trick as an easy weekday dinner.
ETA: Mooli/daikon is like a big white radish which you can get from most Asian markets, you could substitite thinly sliced normal radish if you can’t find it.
On Wednesday Bicester Village hosted the British Designers Collective, with a guest appearance by Alexa Chung which caused much kerfuffles and excitement. Although her visit was brief Alexa flew the flag for Brit style in a Bella Freud jumper and Nicholas Kirkwood shoes.
The pop-up store is open until mid-May and is packed with bargain pieces from a selection of key UK designers including Peter Pilotto, Holly Fulton, Hermione de Paula, Jonathan Saunders and Nicholas Kirkwood. It was really lovely to see these collections in the flesh and at a price point which is still slightly eye-watering, but only in a ‘misty-eyed at a wedding’ rather than floods of tears.
It makes me feel rather proud to be British, we’re really lucky to foster such great design talent here in the UK. Onto more material pursuits, Bicester itself is always worth a jaunt if you’re in the market for a treat, I’ve picked up a few nice pieces of Prada as well as some bargainous high street bits and bobs.
One of the most spectacular things about Paris Fashion Week is the venues, grand doesn’t even begin to cut it. From the Spanish Embassy to the Westin Hotel it’s all about the light fixtures, chandeliers a go-go, moulding, gilding you name it, those ceilings have got it.
After a phone from my gran my dad was had a word in my shell-like, I often mention my French roots but my Irish side -which is a whole half- gets a bit looked over. So to celebrate St Patrick’s Day I thought I’d post my granny’s recipe for soda bread; don’t worry I will also be wearing a green promotional hat and getting drunk on Apple Sourz and Guinness, because that’s what being Irish is all about, right?
I don’t look very Irish, but I do have my grandma’s height, (we’re both 5″8) and hopefully I’ve inherited some of her gentle temperament. Hanorah used to bake her award-winning brown bread daily and it’s much loved by all her children and grandchildren. We’d have it throughout the day, with Olhausen sausages and black pudding in the morning, with her homemade worcester berry jam in the afternoon and it was just as delicious with plain butter for supper along with one of the endless cups of tea you end up drinking over there. I think worcester berries are blackcurrants or Ribena berries but we always call them worcester berries, the bushes grow in her garden and it makes a really good jam.
It’s more commonly known as soda bread over here but in Ireland everyone calls it brown bread. I love it because it’s really filling and goes with savoury as well as sweet. It also doesn’t leave me with that gross feeling you sometimes get with normal bread.
I asked my cousin for the recipe and she sent me a very simple set of instructions, a bit wary I did a lot of googling but in the end just decided to go for it. Getting buttermilk in the UK is a little tough, there is a great Irish shop on Lordship lane near my house but they’d run out so I just soured under a pint of milk with the juice of a lemon and let it sit. Much preferable to beating cream until it separates into butter… Here is the recipe, it’s really very simple, my loaf turned out not too bad which is good considering my baking skills are nonexistent!
Ingredients:
2 cups of wholemeal flour
1 cup of self raising flour
pinch of salt, teaspoon of baking soda
about 3-400ml butter milk
Sift your flour and chuck all the germ in, make a well and mix in the buttermilk until it’s just wet enough. Don’t add too much or you will get a doughy loaf. Knead it slightly, but you don’t want to over knead. Make into a flattish cake shape and slash a cross on the top.
Bake at 180 for 30 mins, then turn down to 150 and bake until it makes a hollow sound when you tap the bottom.
Kicking off my showroom coverage with Brit designer Rupert Sanderson is a little contrary, but that’s how we works round here. Their warm showroom was a lovely sanctuary from the miserable rain, you know how us Rosbifs like to talk about the weather? Well the Rupert Sanderson showroom was possibly the only showroom I got to talk meteorological shop, I never felt so British.
Feast your eyes on this lot, loving the clear plastic and glitter heels, they’re just crying out to be worn with statement print trousers and a slouchy knit. Sharp heels coming back is music to my ears, there’s nothing better than a traditional heel in a interesting leather/fabric in my book.
As well as your trad Rupert Sanderson faves there’s a distinctly 60s flavour in the air with chic little ankle boots and loafers in navy and demure ballet pink that feel a little bit Parisian and a little bit what I like to call ‘Columbo’s Wife’. That stylish, old-timey look, I’m thinking trenchcoats, rollnecks and burgundy leather… Knoworramean?
I’m pleased to report the awesome loafers are BACK, in new colours and finishes and with kilties or the hawesome rose-gold bullets. Ah’m in love.
Just a month ago, (it feels much longer!) LOOK featured me in their mag along with the lovely Jo Payton aka Fashion Detective. She shared with me some of these cool behind the scenes pics from the day. My biggest memory was how cold it was, it took two hours and a Brick Lane curry to recover feeling in my fingers and toes!
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