Last one i promise....

Design sponge/The Glamourai/Bodie and Fou/Vogue Blog/Jezebel/Vogue Blog/

(I LOVE this british vogue staffer's style!!!)

More pictures

Google/Google/Color me katie/Chictopia/Design is mine

Pictures

All the images I have saved to my 'my pictures' folder at work... I needed to put them somewhere for posterity. So here they are.. In a series of posts. Dull for all of you, I am sure, but great for me, its surpirsingly intriguing to see what has caught my eye over the last 8 months (has it REALLY been that long!?)


Design is mine/Google/Bodie and Fou/British Style Blogger

Vive l'été

Its 22 degrees, the sun is still shining outside the office window, I am planning to stroll home through the Tuileries as a fail-safe way to shake my itchy grump.... SUMMER IS COMING!! Youpi!!!

A List...

I have realised that if I declare things to the magic of the internets, something about it being in the public domain forces me to actaully stick to my promises (Weightwatchers and my newest set of money vows being perfect examples). YES INTERNET!! You are great, great for skype, for facebook and for keeping me on my version of the straight and narrow, or the rocky path to self-acceptance, or some other twee path/journey related metaphor. SO. In anticipation of 6 gleeful weeks of freedom in spring-filled Paris, starting from next week when my stage finally finishes, here is how I intend to fill my days - with things I have yet to try or discover and must before my time in this blissful city is up. I want my pretentious little moleskine to be filled to the brim with all sorts of secret and not-so-secret spots, rather than just my 15 or so favourites I keep coming back to time and time again....

1. By eating -

• Classic french food at Café Marly, Café des Musées, Bistro Paul Bert, Le Nemrod, Brasserie Lipp, Café Charlot and Ma Bourgogne, all of which are much-lauded and of reasonable-ish prices.
• Macarons at Ladurée and Pierre Hermé. I went through une folie Ladurée last November, but have never been for tea in one of their wonderfully twee restaurants. I haven't even tried (shock horror gasp) the famous Monsieur Hermé's avant-garde creations, so simply must do so before I leave, in order to be able to give a well-informed and judged opinion.
  
• Apparently outstanding frenchified american food at Scoop.

2. By seeing -

• As much of the Louvre as possible. I have yet to go... which is utterly shameful, lazy, and just plain stupid given that the queues will now be énorme, judging from the hordes of tourists getting off at the Musée du Louvre stop on line 1 every morning.
• Pere LaChaise cemetery. K and I were supposed to go on her last trip to Paris, but we are lazy lazy ladies, and it was (probably) raining. Still, we must go and see Balzac's grave because we studied La Peau de Chagrin in first year, and so somehow it seems essential.
• The interior of the Pompidou. I walk past it nearly every day, and yet have never been inside. I will no longer have the 'I don't want to waste my weekend queueing excuse..'
• The Jeu de Paumes, because I adore its neighbour/twin building (The Orangerie), and would love to see how they have used the space to exhibit modern art.
• The Palais de Tokyo, because it looks like an incredible place to people watch and the cafeteria is also allegedly hyper bien.

3. By walking -

• in Les Jardins du Luxembourg - I want to find the famously elusive Fontaine de Medicis and pretentiously read Eliot whilst lounging in a chair. Its the kind of thing i live for.
  
• on the Promenade Plantée, which is a converted old RER line leading from just off Place de la Bastille all the way down to Bois de Vincennes. I have walked a bit of it already, and it was beyond divine, beautifully planted and with wonderful views, but I don't like doing things by halves..
• down Rue Faubourg St-Honoré, and gazing at all the lovely windows and amazingly well-dressed old ladies.

4. By shopping (or window-shopping) at

• Some of the fabulous outdoor marchés - bvd Raspail's organic one, the big one up at Place de la Bastille, the one on Rue Mouffetard which makes me long to live there..
  
• The vintage shops up near Bastille on Rue de la Roquette - particularly Come on Eline, which I have heard fabulous things about (I LIVE IN HOPE, people, I LIVE IN HOPE)
• Marché aux Puces de St-Ouen - its famously expensive and it seems you have to wade through a bit of an...interesting area to get to it, but having been to the Vanves flea market last weekend and having loved just shamelessly perving at all the marvellous antiques, I can't help but think this would be a really fun place to just poke around and be nosey. The rumours of hugglers and racailles en route won't deter me - I work in St-Ouen and am a line 13 habitué. (St Ouen is a notoriously nasty banlieue, which is becoming increasingly industrialised due to cheap office space, and line 13 is the metro which can take you there, or to numerous other less-than-desirable banlieues. Travelling on it each day is a real eye-opener and gives you a real idea of Paris's huge social issues).
• Repetto. Which shouldn't need an explanation.
• The A.PC. surplus shop. Again, no explanation necessary...

5. By wandering ... everywhere; I am not going to renew my navigo (like an oyster card, but topped up for a flat monthly or weekly fee), and am going to go by foot as much as possible. I would say i'll start biking, but that, frankly, is never going to happen here - my road sense in Britain is shakey at best and I don't think its worth risking life and limb, and equally velibs are infuriatingly heavy, and mine always seem to have a flat tyre. So walking it is. I just need to replace my threadbare black ballet pumps and I shall be good to go.



XxX

Photos: My new favourite thing (its a blog), Bardot in Blue (excellent blog), Google, Google, Repetto, and Facehunter..I think.

Dreaming

I keep trying to come out with a post about 'home', and what 'home' is to me, and why I find it weird that I now think of Paris and Oxford as my 'home', as well as my actual 'home' with my parents, which feels increasingly like my chilhod 'home 'and not my current home (something perhaps to do with the fact that my bed there is still a single pine children's bed, and that my bedroom walls are the ultimate early-noughties combo of lilac and pale blue..), but I can't make it work. In short, I am tired, homesick, looking forward to finishing my interminably dragging job next week, but having said all that i am in LOVE with Paris, my parisian friends, my flat, the Jardin de Luxembourg in the sun, and am enjoying dreaming of how my home will look in the future. Perhaps something like one of these....


I love the mismatched crockery and earthy tones. (Apartment Therapy)



Isn't this tucked away bed wonderful? Though the idea of not having a bedside table would worry me slightly... (Apartment Therapy)

Now this is my kind of bedside table! I am not a fan of LV, but something about their trunks and luggage is just impossibly chic.. (Design is mine)

And finally, my perfect desk, only I'd change the Tiffany-blue boxes for some chintzy floral hatboxes, or old children's suitcases. (Design is mine)

XxX

Vintage shopping - a cautionary tale

I have always thought of myself as a bit of a vintage girl. I have a 'vintage' hourglass figure, which limits my wearing of uber modelly trends (the days of boho and smocks were bleak, bleak times for me), and makes nipped in, neat fifites silhouettes by far the most flattering. However, for all my declarations of undying love for vintage styles, vintage clothes, and vinatge shops, vintage just doesn't seem to love me back.

I began to realise this whilst on my first trip to the vintage mecca of 'Beyond Retro' on Brick Lane aged 18, searching for the perfect coat for university. I had read countless, countless accounts of 'how to create the perfect wardrobe', which all extolled the perfect vintage find as a way of adding an individualist touch to one's wardrobe, I had seen countless famous people's wardrobes stuffed with wonderful vintage items, I had avidly noted any 'vintage shopping tips' in articles... In short, I was ready. I was prepared. This trip had been a long time coming, and I was finally able to branch out from Covent Garden, the Kings Road and Oxford Street. I was a grown-up (ha!!) on my way to university and vintage clothes were going to be my future. They were what I would spend my days cycling around on my bike in, my nights partying in, my hangovers luxuriating in. I had plenty of money in my pocket and was fully expecting a glorious haul of perfectly pitched vintage items. Of course, I was deeply disappointed. I fell in love with dresses at first sight. I then tried them on, and, of course, they let me down, not fitting properly or just not fitting at all. After 4 hours trawling the entire Beyond Retro warehouse, I retreated back to the safety of Hampshire and ever-reliable Topshop and ASOS, broken and defeated. But come Easter, the siren-call of vintage tempted me to London* once again, this time to Portobello Market, as a result of L's constant exhortations of its brilliance, and her amazing Julius Caesar necklace which she had picked up there for a song. Once again, it let me down. I found nothing, nothing, nothing, apart from the typical 'oh i haven't found anything and I saved up all this money so I suppose I might as well buy this because it has horses on it and I love horses' silk scarf. Which, like all my others, sits in a big Cath Kidston bag hanging from my wardrobe handles and never gets worn.

In short, I gave up on my dreams of being the girl in the fabulous vintage ensembles, and focussed on other more fulfilling pursuits, such as the art of writing an essay after a night out, how best to waste an entire day when you have two essays due in, and just university life in general. I stuck to Topshop, ASOS and Gap, branching out to Jigsaw and Toast when they had sales on. Occasionally, I'd nip onto Ebay and debate endlessly the merits of the 'perfect' vintage dress, think about it for 24 hours non-stop, and chicken out before placing even one measly bid. I thought I was done with vintage, and felt fine that way, if plagued by occasional twinges of envy at someone's wonderful fur coat or cute tea dress they'd found in some utopian charity shop.

And then I came to Paris, and moved into a flat in the heart of the Marais, about three minutes from some exhaustingly copious vintage shops. I fell for the dream again... And spent the large part of my first three months in Paris trying on fur coats which would be too big for a 6ft man, let alone a 5ft4 girl, in the hopes of finding 'the perfect Parisian fur coat', that I could wear to watch chilly rugby matches in next year. It became a line.'Can we just POP into Fripestar to see if they have 'my fur coat'? It took me a casual 4 months, and the one I did find is nothing like i imagined - curly lambskin (sorry, fur-haters, PLEASE dont hate on me..) with 3/4 length sleeves and a loose swingy shape. On my search for this gem, I have bought roughly 5 items which don't fit me, and never will, due to lack of changing rooms, deceptively low prices, and an overwhleming sense of desperation, a summer dress which i adore, and the perfect checked playsuit which I can't wait to wear. I am still searching for more summer dresses, a vintage satchel/bag, some more things which scream 'hello, I lived in Pairs last year and i am chic and impossibly tasteful' and the ever-elusive BROWN fur coat. Why has my vintage shopping here been more succesful? Probably because I go at least once a week, on my way home from work, and therefore don't feel the pressure I did on my London trips. Or maybe perhaps I am older, a bit wiser, and more certain in what I want and don't want. Certainly, I've learnt the hard way that vintage shopping is nothing like high street shopping, where you can think 'I would love a pair of woven leather sandals', pop into topshop, and find them with relative ease. Vintage shopping is a tricky balancing act between keeping an open mind and retaining a clear sense of whether you will actually wear that funky looking 80s blouse, or ever have the time (or, in my case, rather whether you are actually ABLE) to adjust that dress which has an amazing print but is too long/short/has a funny neck. It takes discipline and a true sense of style, both of which I lacked prior to this year but am hopefully developing. Luckily, some clever peeps, like Modcloth and Anthropologie, have realised that, for lots of people, vintage is scary, too time-consuming, and too disappointing, and have cleverly cornered the market for all things 'vintage style'. But the catch with these shops is the price you pay for this 'vintage style'. Fair play to Anthro and Cath Kidston, both of whom spotted a gap in the market and have cornered it with extremely well-disguised canniness, but... ain't nothing like real thing baby, ain't nothing like the real thing... don't you think?

For all my disappointments and self-loathing after yet another ill-advised 5 euro skirt purchase, I always feel like I am screwing someone over somewhere when I buy a 'reconditioned' vintage peice from somewhere like Anthro, or Pedlars, or Cath Kidston. I'm not, because the inflated price is the result of one of their employees going to a flea market, sourcing the stuff, arranging it prettily, etc etc etc, so maybe this feeling is the feeling of me screwing over my bank balance, because I am too lazy or impatient to look for the goodies myselef. Blah. I've backed myself into a stupid corner (and written a stupidly long post). I love anthro things. Love, love love. I also like Cath Kidston, in restrained doses. I'll happily buy something from both of them - the skirt on the right being the perfect case in point from Anthro - if I like it enough. It just doesn't have the same thrill about it, I suppose. The bragging rights that come with the perfect vintage piece are, to me, as attractive as the piece itself. (I am not sure what that says about my obsession over others' opinion of me, or my levels of self-absorption, but whatever it is I am certain it isn't good).

My original idea with this post was some kind of kooky extended simile with vintage being like a boy you just couldn't stop loving, even though he was a twat/broke your heart/trampled all over it merrily/always let you down and refused to ever meet your parents, but I got bored and thought it trite. However, the similarities are striking. Annoying? Difficult? Impossibly unreliable? Yes, but also totally irrestible and always justifiable (on some retarded level). Something I'll alwasy fall for? Absolutely, and the same is definitely NOT true for heart-breaking boys... (see, it totally doesn't stand up to extension.oh well)

*Obviously, just for clarification, I went ot London in between these two trips. And before them. And since them. I am not some weird social recluse or freakishy financially discplined shopper (as you well know, if you read the rest of this blog)... I just didn't go to vintage shops. I went to things like plays, adn exhibitions, and yummy restaurants, and saw friends, and things like that.I do have a life other than obsessing about clothes, promise.

Photos: Cherry Blossom Girl, The Sartorialist, Vogue Blog - the picture sums for for me WHY vintage summer dresses will always be a winner, and Anthropologie.

Lovely.

Yesterday was a tricky day. I am tired, and filled with malaise, and my plans for summer employment have unfortunately fallen through. All this was made much better by darling S, my closest friend here in Paris, and our discovery of the Pink Flamingo Pizzeria on Rue Veille du Temple - perfectly thin, crispy base with parma ham and fig topping. Om nom nom. We then watched the Great Ormond Street documentaries recently shown on the beeb, wept alot, felt very small and insignificant, and then she went home and I watched the Glee 'Madonna' episode and laughed so much I snorted peppermint tea down my favourite cashmere cardigan. I am nothing if not classy. It was the perfect salvation-bringing end to a rubbish day.

Friends and fun here are something I have found difficult. I like fun. I love love love my friends and am loyal to a fault. I am used to having a large group of friends around me, plenty of social activites to say no or yes to according to my whims, and lots of variety. But Parisian 'fun' and my Parisian friends are very different to all this.

A 'fun' night out at home would typically consist of a large group of all my friends - boys and girls, lots of drinks, a nightlcub, some silly dancing, Mcdonalds at 2 a.m., and then hollyoaks omnibus the next day, curled up in wonderfully wallowy self-induced pain on the sofa with the girls. Obviously there are other things as well - barbeques, dinner parties, movie nights, snowball fights... Here, fun goes more to the tune of a lovely meal in a nice restaurant, a long stroll, perhaps a few glasses of wine, and then home to bed and an episode of SATC, alone, followed by a long brunch the next morning, all with the same one or two girls, who, out of the many people I've met here, are the only ones I genuinely like. (I hope that doesn't make me sound like a total bitch..) I rarely bother with 'clubs' here, they are extortionate and have excruciating door policies, and I prefer not to leave the fate of my night in the hands of a bouncer with an ego problem, preferring a bar and long long chats over cocktails. Explaining this to friends at home sometimes makes me feel slightly teenagery and squirmy - 'Will they think I'm a loser because I just don't like clubbing here..' Of course, this is just me being ridiculous. No one cares about what I do apart from me, and I think all my friends are relieved that they are no longer subject to my astonishly powerful hangovers, which always involve alot of self-pity, vomiting and moaning. Nevertheless, I find it a strange development. I wonder what will happen when i return to my old stomping ground next year - will I throw msyelf back into Jaegerbombs and tequila with gusto, or step back, preferring a slightyl more measured and less......bucolic approach? I am assuming the latter, as I feel rather 'been there, done that'-ish about the former, and Weightwatchers is obviously not compatible with such a lifestyle.

This whole paragraph sounds a bit preachy, and I don't mean it to at all - i LOVE a night out with a big group of friends, and miss dancing in a big group, arms round everyone, singing at the top of my voice, but clubbing with one or two others just isn't as fun for me. I think, grudgingly, that this is actually a question of confidence. I hate feeling like the lumpy friend in a nightclub, and yet I always feel like the lumpy friend in a nightclub here. Eek. Even writing that sentence makes me curl my lip in disgust. I'm not the lumpy friend, I never have been, and yet it is a feeling which I have found astonishly hard to shake here, hence my quest for better self-image and the Weightwatchers (which continues, wonderfully, to be easy, wonderful and is working, though more slowly than it did initially). Is this Paris? Or is it me? It certainly isn't my friends here; they are a select bunch, who are all supportive, gentle, and very good at understanding that I will never be up for a massive night out, and that I'll always be drinking Perrier. It certainly isn't my friends at home, they just think (i think..) that I'm being frightfully grown up and finally fully embracing my middle-aged tendencies (my inability to ever stay out past 1 a.m. is well known..) I suppose part of my dilemna with the whole 'night out' situation is that I know I can't feasibly go back to my slurring ways with shots - at least not quite to such an extent.. without undoing all my hard work with Weightwatchers, and it all being for nothing. SO..where does that leave me? Happy, and just in a very different place to where I was a year ago, perhaps a more 'grown-up' place. Sure, I can't wait for some amazing 21st birthdays in the summer, I can't wait to return to Oxford and celebrate the end of everyone's exams, but I am glad/happy/proud (?) to have discovered that a less frenetic and more minimalist approach to fun and friends can be just as enjoyable. This year has been a real journey, to lapse into cringe therapy speak, one which has continually surprised me, and this development - that I need neither a large group of friends nor a super-charged social life to be happy - has surprised me most of all. XxX

Miscellany no. 2

I am tired, tired and sad because one of my few friends here leaves in two days and its R's 21st today, and I want to be with her not here, but I am also exciiiiiiiiiiiited because spring and K are coming (she moves to (almost) Paris in 2 and a half WEEKS!!) and inspired by a weekend of perfect weather and people watching. So in place of a pointless and dull slef-indulgent moan, I give you things which i love, and why I love them. I have other things to say but I can't be arsed to say them coherently, so you'll have to wait for my thoughts on the following topics (i know you can't wait) - vintage shopping, more on weight, Susie Orbach, and the depressing mediocrity of the general election.

I love bikes. I love girls on bikes. I love riding bikes pretending to myself that I in any way resemble this girl and her bike, when the truth is a) i can never ever wear pleats on my hips and b) try as I might, waisted sirt + high neck + boobs = weird truncating effect which knocks a good 3 inches off my already petite height, and c) My bike is not some elegant heavy-framed pashley style thing, its an eminently practical ugly road bike, which does not allow for good bike riding posture. (Copenhagen Bike blog thingy - google it, its great for pretty people on bikes)


I love Cyrstal Renn. I love this swimming costume. I love how she looks so happy and healthy and glowing. I love that I am beginning to feel like I could feel like this this summer in a bikini. (YAY Weightwatchers). (Jezebel somewhere)


You all know about my undying love and affection for Bridge. This make me want to grow my hair again. (Google)


Layering like this never ever works in real life. And no one but no one but NO ONE will ever look good in thigh-high socks, unless they are H or some other fortunate lanky thing with incredible legs. However, I love the flowers in the bag, the bag, the tweediness of the whole thing and the hat. (J Crew).

Publish Post

XxX

Money money money

I am useless with money. I am not sure where this has come from. My parents are seriously sensible. My mother's two weaknesses are Toast and bookshops. My father's are boats and kit of any kind. However, they aren't the sort to go out for meals, or buy something without it genuinely being necessary. I, on the other hand, will happily go out for supper and lunch every day of the week, can always justify a new item of clothing, and definitely have to try very hard to rail against my 'have money MUST SPEND IT' instinct. Whilst I am fortunate enough to be able to say that this completely hazardous approach has never landed me in trouble, it's something I frequently attempt to change. Yet the changes never seem to stick.

Take, for example, my Lent no shopping / no eating out vows. They lasted, oooh, all of three weeks. I broke the shopping one after considerable debate, and don't regret it, because the H and M garden collection was limited edition and my new dress and blue shorts are items I was, in fact, genuinely searching for. My eating out transgressions were similarly reasoned - in a foreign city with new pals, being sociable often involves going out for meals, as we all live in teeny studio apartments. My problem, I suppose, is one of restraint and balance. I am quite a black and white person in pretty much everything - either incandescently happy, or deeply, obviously sad, and any academic work is either very good or completely awful. This polarity extends to money as well. I don't mind being useless with money, I just find it a bit embarassing. I am always the first to suggest a meal out, will always pick the brand of pasta sauce that I like, rather than the cheapest, and I love to treat people. Great, in fact wonderful, why on earth is the jammy cow moaning?? I hear you cry. Well, because, it isnt really very grown up of me to be like this. Its actually rather shaming and extremely silly, and I am pretty sure that one day I will just sit down and think 'Why the fuck did you buy all those clothes, and why can't you cook anything other than the real basics?'.

I have tried the whole spreadsheet-budget malark, and read pretty much every article going on the subject. Yet each and every time, the hedonist (or, perhaps more cynically, the part of myself completely and utterly shaped by ceaseless bombardment from advertising screaming 'you're worth it!') seems to win. Which is a bit silly, really. Clothes-wise, I genuinely need a new pair of black ballet pumps, some summer sandals (I somehow doubt that Senegalese plastic flip-flops will cut it in Paris) and a black blazer, but apart from that I really shouldn't be spending a penny. Instead, I should be saving, like any sensible person would, for the proverbial rainy day. But the rainy day leaves me depressed, and I simply think 'Well, when the rainy day comes at least I shall have (insert that perfect item of clothing you have just seen on ASOS and simply must have here) and it will make me smile always'. So, instead, I shall save for something tangible, something real, something I have alwasy dreamed of. That way, if the rainy day comes along, the money will be there, but if it doesn't, I will hopefully have something to contribute to a week's holiday to New York. L is about to be whisked there by her big sister for a week as 21st gift, and if I didn't love her so much I would be savagely jealous. New York is my dream destination. I want to go in summer 2011, and if I do sensible things, like buying subscriptions to Vogue, Elle and Grazia, rather than buying them each and every month (or week), not buying clothes unless there is a genuine need (which is clearly distinguishable from a want, because a need is a dull thing to shop for and a want a visceral thrill) and actually budgeting my weekly supermarket trip and planning my meals out, it shouldn't be too hard to save up a tidy sum. I intedn to strengthen my resolve with a piece of paper in my wallet reminding me how much I have already spent this year, on not very much at all, and hopefully, hopefully, that should do the trick...XxX