Hear me roar

It's quite rare that I find something in a shop that I absolutely love, but if there's one thing that always gets me excited it's Kenneth Jay Lane jewelry. More specifically, his animal pieces. However, if you've ever checked out Mr Lane's jewelry you'll know that more often than not it's super pricey, so I'm always on the lookout for other animal pieces. I came across this leopard ring in H&M today for the reasonable price of £6.99. Not bad. It's a really nice size, the kind of thing where you don't really need to wear much else. Jewelry wise obviously, you'll still want to wear clothes.

Word

Pink for a girl, blue for a boy

I think I'm becoming mildly obsessed with all things pink. I'm not really sure why. Anyway, it's lead me to purchase an amazing pale pink tweed coat from Zara which I love. Think 1950's presidents wife. I also got a cute 60's style pink top from River Island which I've been looking at for months. I love having birthday money.   

In the future, everyone will be famous

Even Andy Warhol faced the odd set back. But he never gave up.

A diamond is forever

I'm not sure if you caught it, but there was a fantastic documentary on channel four this week about last year's auction of Elizabeth Taylor's spectacular jewelry collection.

What was perhaps most amazing about her jewelry is that she didn't buy these things because she thought they were beautiful, they all marked a particular time or event in her life. Gifts from husbands, lovers and friends, souveniers from trips with her family, celebrations of movies she made or the births of her children.

Elizabeth Taylor had an extraordinary life with its fair share of blessings. However she also had more than her share of heartache, something which is often glossed over in favour of talking about her eight marriages or scandalous love affairs. But at the heart of it all Elizabeth was an incredibly strong and generous person, and someone that I've admired for a long time. If you haven't read it, her book My Love Affair With Jewelry, is well worth a read, telling her story in her own words. We'll never again see a star like Elizabeth Taylor, a woman who demanded people's admiration just as surely as any diamond ever could.

The simple truth

Bonjour!

Apologies for the lack of updates, I've been busy with meetings the last week or so. Also, with planning a summer trip to Paris, which we've finally booked up! We're staying in Monmartre and I'm so excited. The Marc Jacobs x Louis Vuitton exhibition is top of my list of things to do. Well, that and Disneyland of course.

A life less ordinary

I know what you’re going to say, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. But alas, it was the cover that first attracted me to Swanson on Swanson, the autobiography of Hollywood legend Gloria Swanson. Found in my favourite second hand book shop, I paid the grand sum of £1 for the dusty paperback, yet it has become one of my favourite books.

Despite having never heard of Miss Swanson prior to reading the book, I loved it, and have read it a number of times since. Gloria Swanson has a unique perspective on Hollywood having worked in the movie business from 1915 through to 1950, in both silent movies and the talkies’, alongside some of the biggest names in movie history, such as Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino and Cecil B. DeMille. But what I really loved about this book was Swanson’s honesty. This is no fluffy Hollywood fairy tale. Swanson’s career weathered multiple marriages, affairs, scandals and financial problems, but Swanson doesn’t hold back on a single detail. Profiling both her brightest and darkest periods, this book tells the story of an amazing woman. Strong, talented, beautiful and incredibly smart, Swanson is the stuff from which legends are made, and in my opinion she doesn’t get half the recognition she deserves.

Happy Easter everyone!

Whether you celebrate it in the traditional sense, or just as an excuse for chocolate, I hope everyone's having a lovely day.

Flawless

I dream of being as flawless as Dita, but I just can't quite manage to look this put together all the time.

Your day will come

"When shipped abroad, a Christian Lacroix wedding dress travels upright in a cloth case, each layer resting in a bed of tissue. Such extraordinary care and attention to detail is the foundation of couture."

Words fail me...

Mellow yellow

Balenciaga, 1967

This dress is the reason I love Pinterest so much. I wasn't looking at anything in particular, but stumbled across this dress from the Metropolitan Museum collection, pinned by Nina Garcia. I'm almost lost for words to describe how amazing I find this dress. I thought it was amazing before I saw the date underneath it, but discovering it's from 1967 only increased my love of it.

The colour, the shape, the edging, nothing about this dress gives you any indication that it is over fifty years old. The scalloped edging is reminiscent of a Chloe collection from a few seasons back, and the mullet shape has been seen on runways the world over for the last few seasons. In my opinion this is exactly what makes this dress so special. It's incredibly beautiful, but it isn't obviously from a certain era. Despite that it's couture, and would have cost thousands of pounds to buy, if you could still be wearing it fifty years later, surely that makes it a worthwhile investment? And how much of todays fashion could you say that about?

Dream a little dream

I had a dream the other night that I was friends with Valentino and his head seamstress. I was going to a big party and they made me a special blue dress. It was a darker blue than this one but you get the idea.

A whirlwind adventure - Hotel Missoni, Edinburgh

My sister and I were lucky enough to take a short trip to Edinburgh a few weeks back, made all the more exciting when we discovered our home for the weekend was to be Hotel Missoni, just off the Royal Mile. As soon as we jumped in our taxi at Waverley station, our taxi driver was regaling us
with tales of the doormen, who wear specially designed Missoni kilts. Lo and behold the legendary door men were there to take our bags as we arrived.

It’s always difficult when you have such high expectations for something, but Hotel Missoni did not disappoint on a single aspect. As expected the décor was a lesson in Missoni’s signature style from the carpets and bedspreads, right down to the note book beside the telephone. Bright colours and the classic Missoni stripes permeated every part of the hotel. The staff were exceptionally friendly, especially the kind lady who came to do our turn down service who left us little chocolates to have before bed. The drinks in the mini bar and the movies on the television were all free. It may not sound like a big deal, but there’s nothing worse than being stuck in a hotel room and not having anything to watch. Not that being stuck in a Missoni hotel room is any great trial!

The hotel is centrally located, so there are restaurants, shops, galleries and museums right on the door step. I couldn’t recommend it more, so if you’re planning a trip to Edinburgh give our regards to the doormen!

Adventure

Girl with a pearl hairpin

I always look at photos from the shows, but it isn't necessarily the clothes that catch my attention. For Spring / Summer I loved all the pastel, lady like clothes, the Vuitton carousel complete with Miss Moss, the 1950's Mad Men style of the clothes and all of the grown up, beautiful details that came with that.

But what really caught my eye was the pearl hairpins at Chanel. Pearls have long been a Chanel style staple, and Karl never fails to reinterpret them each season to fit the current mood and style. This season was no exception, and to accompany his dreamy underwater world, Karl had pearls stuck to the models skin, round their waists as belts, and most interestingly, in their hair. I'm not even sure why but these pearls hairpins stuck in my mind, at least until I discovered that they're £165 for three. Phenomenal. However, I felt they were ripe for a DIY. I found an amazing website recently through Pinterest, and they have a super easy DIY for the pins. You can find it here: http://honestlywtf.com/diy/diy-chanel-pearl-hairpins/ I'd urge you to check out the rest of her DIY's, they're brilliant. I'm working on my Chanel hairpins right now, so I'll post a picture when they're done.

Number 05, Misty Mountain

I've decided to decorate my bedroom, which I thought was going to be fairly straightforward, until I started looking at pictures online and buying copious tester pots. So far I have six little squares on my wall in various shades of pale grey. I want a kind of Dior grey, and it's proving problematic to find. Inspiration above. I'll let you know how I get on.

Audrey knows best

As if

Having not seen it for years, my sister and I watched Clueless together the other day, and I think it's fair to say we've both become slightly obsessed. Honestly, at first you think the clothes are slightly ridiculous, but by the end of the movie you long for a skirt suit, cardigan and knee highs. Cue a comprehensive search for the perfect tweed skirt suit and matching mini sweater vests.

A man is known by the silence he keeps

In a world where we are constantly bombarded with
information about every single aspect of celebrities lives, the most alluring and intriguing people have become the ones who say very little, or indeed
nothing at all.


Kate Moss is probably one of the most iconic women of our generation, yet how many of us have heard her speak? We may have poured over images of her in various magazines since she was 16, but you can probably count on one hand the number of times she’s allowed these same publications to interview her. And it certainly seems to be paying off. People are beginning to revolt against these so called “celebrities” who insist on showing us every aspect of their daily lives. Take the Kardashians for example. Over the last
few years since they launched themselves into the media we’ve seen them get married, divorced, fight, make up, get dressed, work out, eat, even in the case of Kim, have sex. And although this has helped them to build a billion dollar brand out of various endorsements and sponsorship deals, they are now facing a public backlash. After her much publicised 72 day, $10 million marriage, Kim, and indeed the Kardashian brand in general, is facing a much more cynical public, who are beginning to come round to the idea that it is possible to know too much about these public figures.


So is Kate on to something with her silence? It seems so, after all it has helped her to weather a cocaine scandal, her ill-fated romance with Pete Doherty, and her often raucous partying. By remaining silent, and keeping her private life private, Kate has become a legend, proving that there really is such a thing as too much information when it comes to the private lives of the rich and famous.

Truth

Lady Gaga x Terry Richardson

“I am so real, he says, that I am unreal.” – Lady Gaga on Terry Richardson.

Lady Gaga is an enigma. Although we know she must be human like the rest of us, she looks and behaves like something from another planet.
Her lyrics are the most human aspect of her persona, and even they sometimes falter. But all that has changed with the publication of her first book. Gaga allowed the often controversial photographer, Terry Richardson, to follow her
movements from August 2010 to February 2011, and the some 100,000 images he shot have been edited down to the 450 photographs showcased in the book.

Gaga and Richardson are by no means the first to publish a behind-the-scenes book, but Gaga herself is what makes this book so special. Gaga is a true performer, who never lets her stage persona slip even for a second. There’s no moment when you can spot the girl behind Gaga, she’s
switched on as it were twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. But with this book, you get to see what Gaga’s really like when the cameras aren’t present. From photographs of her in tears at gifts from her fans, or eating spaghetti in jeans and a t-shirt in one of the many hotel rooms she passes through, all these images give a tantalising glimpse at the girl behind the public persona. Of course, the images of her visually outstanding stage performances are well worth a look, but it’s the private moments which Richardson has been privy to which make this book so amazing.

I always love books which show the private, unseen side of these public figures we’re so used to seeing on TV and in the papers, and this book certainly doesn’t disappoint. I have a huge admiration for Gaga and what she does, and after looking through this book I can safely say I’m a little monster for life.

Oh Ashley...

Words cannot describe how much I am loving this look on Ashley. I need to find a fur as amazing as this. I've become a bit obsessed with fur recently, bizarre since the weather's finally getting better. Oh well.

An ode to Joan

It may sound a cliché since I’ve never met anyone who disagrees, but I love Mad Men. Since my sister bought me the box set of series one, I’ve been awe struck by the style of the thing. Every character is innately chic in their own way, but there’s one person who instantly stands out as she sashays through the offices of Stirling Cooper.

Joan Holloway is un-flappable. From her witty one-liners to her fit-like-a-glove pencil dresses, no one gets the better of Joan. She wiggles through that office like a serene, business-like version of Marilyn Monroe. She looks like a woman but thinks like a man, and everything she does, from briefing her girls, to getting drunk and smoking a dozen cigarettes in ten minutes, she does with a style and elegance no one can match.

Some women may balk at admiring a woman who sleeps with her boss, but Joan is too savvy and stylish to ignore or admonish. At a time when the only role open to a woman was that of house wife, Joan is a refreshing exception, who operates in a male dominated society as a woman. The other girls may not like her, but Joan just doesn’t care. And I can’t help but like her for that. And for her amazing little gold pencil necklace.

Mrs Hince

I keep waiting to get bored with looking at pictures of Kate, yet every time I come across a new one I get just as excited...

MM

Can't talk, pinning...

A friend introduced me to Pinterest a few months ago and I instantly became addicted. So often you come across images you like online, but they get lost on your desktop, or amongst your files. Pinterest lets you organise and share your images, and I think it's bloody fantastic! It's also incredibly addictive. It's a great source of inspiration and I've used it for everything, including deciding what to wear, what to have for dinner, even where to go on holiday. So what are you waiting for?!



You can follow me here: http://pinterest.com/emma_lou/


Happy pinning!

Words to live by

Beauty within the darkness...

How seriously amazing is this ring?

I stumbled across it on etsy a few months ago, and I visit it online a couple of times a month. I think its appeal lies in the fact that despite it being beautiful it's pretty morbid when you look at it closely. Named after Persephone the goddess of the underworld, this ring perfectly captures her story of being trapped into a life of eternal winter in the underworld.

The Persephone jewel is made by BloodMilk, and can be found here:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/61794184/persephones-jewel-part-ii-ringhones-jewel-part-ii-ring

The designer also has a pretty nifty blog too.

Platinum, every time...

I have always had an obsession with the idea of an enchanted world full of elves and mermaids and snow princesses, so I have always wanted hair to look more a part of the world I dream of. The cut I have is perfect for it too because it makes it very Marilyn Monroe, who I love.

- Abbey Lee Kershaw