Champagne and scarlet, black against gold,
Angelic face with skull-stamped stole.
What better pair of enfants terribles
Than an antique cherub and Alexander McQueen?
P.S. Say hello to The Scarf, otherwise known as a Christmas MIRACLE!
Showing posts with label Fabulous Things. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fabulous Things. Show all posts
Colour Me Creuset
Today signalled a scary new stage in my life: I chose kitchenware over clothes. Intending to scour the Selfridges sale in the hope of finding some inappropriately jazzy shoes that wouldn’t go with anything, I instead found myself hypnotically heading towards the home department. Once there, said jazzy shoes skipped – or more likely, staggered - straight out of my mind, for across the room I saw the glazed gleam of Le Creuset's rainbow-bright pots and pans, and above them, significantly, a sign: 20% off. Jackpot!
Le Creuset’s cast iron cookware is the stuff of foodie-cum-fashionista dreams. Founded in France in 1925, the signature burnt orange shade of enamel originally used has since been expanded into an array of to-die-for colours, including a rich cherry red, a deep plum and their latest, a darkly glittering midnight blue. With such a delectable selection of shades, I can't help but think of them as the big brother to that other delightful French institution, the macaroon.
Spot le difference:
But Le Creuset is no mere foodie fad: its extortionately priced products make for true investments. To create each piece the melted materials must first be encased within an individual mould, which is then cracked open after casting, the enamel hand-finished by French artisans. With that kind of heritage behind their products, it’s no wonder Le Creuset's reassuringly hefty casserole dishes are the hallmark of a well kitted-out kitchen - they seem to shine with effortless culinary prowess.
So it was with great excitement that I embarked upon my first Le Creuset investment. Resisting the ridiculously cute heart-shaped ramekins, I went for a utensils jar and a dinky oven dish, both in a beautiful sea-blue shade of teal. Not exactly flash enough to cook up a Julia Child-style banquet with, but it’s a start - and given the brand’s reputation for lasting a lifetime, at least I can take my time building up the collection - one Christmas list at a time...
Poached Eggs and Picasso
The crisp crack of a spoon breaking the burnt-sugar shell of a crème brûlée. Pricking a poached egg to see the sunshine-yellow yolk ooze out. The surprisingly soft pop of a champagne cork. Getting to the next level on Angry Birds. Forget more effortful events like wedding days or childbirth, these are the single-second moments in life to take an altogether more humble pleasure in. Over just as soon as they begin, their only sticking point is the very brevity of their being - given the chance, who wouldn't stretch out those short snapshots of satisfaction over a lengthier period of time?
Cue LIFE photographer Gjon Mili and his series of portraits of Pablo Picasso taken in the South of France in 1949. They show Picasso using a small flashlight to draw in the air, much the same as writing your name with a sparkler on bonfire night - yet this time the image is captured on camera, that one vanishing second sealed on film via a darkened room and a slow shutter speed. What I find so captivating about the results is the visible vitality of Picasso behind each light drawing - it's a two-for-one artistic offer where you see both creator and creation together at once, the ecstasy of a single enlightened flash of imagination eternalised as a piece of work itself. If only we could press the pause button on other such all-too-brief moments in life - but then again, perhaps that's what makes them so precious in the first place.
All That Glitters
Under The Tree
Braving the depths of the attic to unearth decomposing Christmas decorations is a rite of passage for many at this time of year. Battered boxes of baubles, moulting tinsel and tangled strings of fairy lights - nothing signals the start of the season quite like it. Yet after experiencing a full-on face crash into a florist's inexplicably low-hanging wreath earlier, I could only think gladly, mouth full of pine needles, of my own more minimalist decorations waiting back home.
Yep, this year I’ve gone all Zen and bought a Christmas tree wall sticker (found here) in place of a traditional evergreen. A little unconventional perhaps, but what, may I ask, would you want with one of those past-it pine numbers? What, with their invitingly festive scent and three-dimensional decorating potential? They’re nothing compared to my plastic wall sticker! It’s so clean and neat and…ok, so my flat doesn't have room for a proper tree. But chancing upon John Galliano for Dior’s similarly unorthodox design for the Claridge’s Christmas tree last night, I felt a little bit better about my ersatz alternative.
Entitled ‘Under The Sea’, this is the second tree Galliano has designed for Claridge’s following last year’s ‘frozen’ offering, which featured a prowling leopard amongst its ice-blue boughs. It is very beautiful, and very, very fabulous. Scattered with seashells and crystals, the tree stands a sparkling shade of coral in the corner of the lobby with jellyfish, crabs and a very cute seahorse decorously clinging to it.
I particularly enjoyed the quote from Galliano given on the front plaque: “The majestic beauty of Claridge’s Art Deco interiors never fails to inspire me”. Art Deco as inspiration wasn't quite what sprung to mind when gazing at this Little Mermaid meets Cornify creation, but whatever you say John – it’s still spectacular. He's taken on the traditional tree and christened it cool again. Although rooted in a similar spirit of nonconformity, I have a feeling my wall sticker won’t look quite as impressive as this winter wonder.
Cornify
Right, own up - who stole November? The fact that it’s December and Christmas is just around the corner was an extremely disconcerting discovery this week. What’s even more disconcerting is that it appears I’ve turned into my mother and already bought all my Christmas presents in some hyper-organised online shopping fit last weekend. What! When did that happen?
If you’re in need of some Christmas cheer and the delightfully disgusting Iceland campaign just isn’t doing it for you then may I recommend Cornify. It’s the campest thing since Jason Donovan scoffing Iceland’s £2 mini beef yorkshires in fishnet stockings and a handlebar moustache. Simply go to the website (found here) and add the special Cornify link to your toolbar. Click on it every time you feel like some festive sparkle and up pops on demand a glittering unicorn or smiling rainbow, or Hello Kitty riding a glittering unicorn over a smiling rainbow, with added glitter. Good, wholesome fun at its most fabulous and more addictive than Lucky Charms-flavoured crack. What a treat!
Number Nine pre-Cornify:
Number Nine Cornified:
Lost Letters
Letters are dead, emailing is in. When was the last time you opened a stamped addressed envelope that contained a personal scribble rather than a bank statement? Such was the novelty of receiving a handwritten postcard last week that reading it felt all Downton Abbey-esque, like I should stand up afterwards with furrowed brow and gravely announce to the room that war had been declared.
You can only protest so much about the death of the letter before sounding like a new-age Neanderthal, but it does call into question how contemporary politicians, authors, actors and Jordan are going to record their correspondences for posterity (and posthumous serialisation in Hello! Magazine). With letters it’s easy: simply pile them up in a forgotten bureau for a grieving relative to discover. But emails? Do you create a special folder in your inbox labelled ‘The Juicy Bits’? Or does said relative have to sift through years of spam to come up with the goods?
Provided they can be found, it’s unlikely such emails will match the cloistered intimacy one can assume with letters. There’s something terribly sobering about seeing your words typed up in an email, poised to become permanent as soon as you hit the send button. Between clinical clicks of the keyboard and penis enlargement pop-ups there’s not much room left in which to divulge the secret poetries of the soul.
Perfumery
Our sense of smell is the most evocative power we possess. A familiar fragrance can conjure up memories in ways that merely seeing or hearing can’t - it's got that je ne sais quoi quality that brings you instantly to the scene of the crime. The smell of Horlicks is for me, oddly, inextricably linked to The Hobbit, thanks to the fact my father used to read it to me as a child over a hot mug of that malty bedtime drink. When I lift the lid of a tin of Horlicks powder, I am immediately transported to old Bilbo Baggins and his band of dwarves. Seriously, Horlicks just is The Hobbit.
And so it is with a person’s perfume. As you get to know someone their scent becomes slowly entwined with the very essence of their being. We’ve all had that uncanny experience of walking past a stranger who uses the same fragrance as your best friend or grandma - a sudden flash of familiarity is just as quickly replaced with a disarming sense of mistaken identity. A person and their perfume are bound together as one in the mind: the perfume becomes the wearer and the wearer the perfume.
The Internet informs me that the word perfume is derived from the Latin per fumus, ‘through smoke’, relating to its ritualistic origins of burning incense and herbs. Of course I read that and thought jackpot! How beautifully poetic! But on second thoughts, that’s the exact opposite of what it should stand for. Perfume isn’t a smoke screen, disguising the wearer - I think of it more as a distillation of self. And you need to make sure to bottle yourself correctly, if you see what I mean.
With this in mind, when I fancied a change and chose not to restock my old faithful Etra by Etro eau de toilette when it ran out, I knew it would be an Extremely Important Task finding a new signature scent that I could stand side by side with for the next few years.
Charged with such a personal quest, sometimes it’s good to stick with what you know - there’s an alarmingly wide array of fragrances out there to choose from (case in point: the new Justin Bieber offering). Returning home to the familial bosom, I raided my mother’s dressing table and quickly made her room smell like a hot-boxed bordello spraying and sniffing all the scents she had collected over the years. Just when I thought I was going to pass out from the fumes I picked up Shaal Nur by Etro (what can I say, we’re an Etro family). Smoky and spicy, like an intense, exotic incense with undertones of vanilla and rosemary– that is how I want to smell on wintery nights spent sheltering from the cold. And, of course, it reminds me of my Mum, which gives it a particularly comforting potency.
But what about for day? Shaal Nur’s slow-burning spiciness is strictly an evening affair. After being urged by a colleague to try Diptyque’s Philosykos, a fig-based perfume that she swears by, I skipped off to Liberty’s perfume hall to give it a sniff. And ten minutes later, I skipped out again, fifty quid poorer and one new signature scent richer. It is so very lovely. The first few minutes smell smooth and sweet on the skin, and then the fig notes mellow into what I can only describe as a damp forest, all leafy and luscious. Inhaling it fully, there’s a sudden pang in my stomach that makes me think of home. Not in a warm and nostalgic way like Shaal Nur, but more a feeling of deep solidity and stableness. I know – who would have thought a perfume could give you all that? I’m sold.
P.S. If you’re thinking of buying a new perfume, then I can heartily recommend the ever-enjoyable fragrance review blog Now Smell This to help you along the way.
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