Fashion, Style & Other Stories

LO-13-9-NY-8_5_301101 Calling all fashion lovers. Would all fashion lovers please report immediately to Regent Street. I repeat, please make your way immediately to Regent Street.

Material Whirl is very, very excited about H&M's high-end label, & Other Stories which landed with an almighty thump this weekend, launching its debut store on Regent Street. I am already an unashamed lover of H&M and its modern take on fashion. I always devour its in-store magazine featuring inspirational mood boards, new and up-and-coming designers and its unique interpretation of the catwalk trends. I adore the new flagship store on Oxford Street and loved that it was H&M that took over Paris Fashion Week with its catwalk debut within the grounds of the Musée Rodin. Model of the moment Cara Delevingne even walked as part of an army of top models.

Right now though, it is & Other Stories that has me trawling through its trendy website and trying to work out when I can next get to Regent Street. This is H&M's cool big sister you really want to hang out with.

Filling a two-floor space with a crisp white interior and black spotlights that illuminate all the gorgeous treats on offer, & Other Stories offers minimalist clean lines that are in no way dull. Shiny metallics, towering chunky wedge heels, explosive pops of neon and the edgy and slightly kooky colours that my eye is always naturally drawn to are a perfect way to freshen up my wardrobe for spring (when it finally decides to make an appearance).

The label also offers beauty products and clever accessories which are a core part of the brand, such as preppy leather satchels, on-trend duffel bags and chunky jewellery to update your look. The price tag may be a little higher than H&M, but it is not extortionate. The Evening Standard's Emma McCarthy described the label as one 'To help those with champagne tastes on a beer budget' and as this is a perfect way to sometimes describe my approach to fashion (and a reflection of my bank account) I couldn't agree more.

http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/fashion/a-new-swedish-shopping-sensation--other-stories-lands-on-regentx

& Other Stories offers something a bit different, timeless and chic style on a high-street budget. I particularly love the makeup with a message - 'Go girl, seek happy nights to happy days...' carved into the blusher.  Definitely created with this stylist city in mind where you never know where the day will take you...

http://www.stories.com/

If you go down to Old Street tonight you're sure of a big surprise

It was on all accounts a rather unspectacular evening in London when we emerged from Old Street tube into a moonlit darkness. The rain was falling from the sky in large, thumping drops and the traffic circled around the roundabout unrelentingly.

My husband led me by the hand shivering and umbrella-less to a secret doorway, wedged between two old cafés, and guarded by a sturdy doorman in a shiny black suit. I peeked into the dark, dark doorway and saw some dark, dark stairs, leading to all kinds of dark, dark mystery. After what seemed like an eternity, we were guided slowly down the stairs and my birthday surprise awaited me.

The door opened and I entered a beautiful, opulent and intimate bar from another time that momentarily took my breath away. I was in the Nightjar and my evening of old-school glamour began right then and there.

nightjar-bar

It was hard to know what to glance at first - the low panelled ceilings dripping with glowing lamps, vintage clocks, and Art Deco prints. We were taken to our table where we slipped into soft, brown leather seats and were greeted by a beautiful waitress in black. We were given delicate bowls of salty popcorn to nibble on, which although at first appeared to be a kind gesture in reality turned out to be a devilishly clever as our mouths were left parched and in need of an immediate beverage. This came in the form of iced water infused with watermelon which tasted like bubblegum, in long glasses decorated with nightjars.

On an intimate corner stage, the bands played traditional jazz and blues and swing. Miss Wednesday Gray and her band were my personal favourites - a luscious lead singer with a velvety voice and a white flower in her hair supported by a dapper band. When she crooned On the Sunny Side of the Street into an old-fashioned ribbon microphone this perfectly set the scene for the prohibition speak easy style. Live music against the shaking of the cocktail shaker by waiters in braces really did set the scene.

Nightjar is a very intimate establishment and so we were wedged comfortably between two neighbouring tables - to our right a jovial but elusive gang of Shoreditchians and to our left two sleek, glamorous girls with a Kardashian edge and no wish to make eye contact despite the fact I was nearly sitting on one of their laps. With people watching dispensed it was time to review the baroque gold spun drinks menu, after all, we were here to taste the cocktails and say what the heck to abstention.

The cocktails are concisely categorised by era - Pre-Prohibition (1600-1918) , Prohibition (1918-1932) and Post-War (1940-2000) with some signature cocktails thrown in for good measure. Being partial to anything infused with vanilla, I opted for a seductive Plantation Potion - a giddy concoction of Pamper Anejo Especial Rum, Vanilla, Coffee Infusion, Cherry, Prune, Orange Infusion, Muscovado sugar and Champagne. It glistened in an elegantly tall glass, an amber potion with a blackberry which seemed to be suspended in mid-air but was held in place with a piece of twirly, smoky wood. Alex selected a Boxcar for his first cocktail - Tanqueray Ten Gin, Cointreau, NightJar Grenadine, Fresh Squeezed Lime and Egg White. It appeared as if by magic, frosted with crunchy sugar and accompanied by grenadine in a broken egg-shell.

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As the night went on, we made our way through the menu, Zazarec with Appleton Estate 8 Year Rum, Pimento Smoke and Chocolate Bitters and a Cupcake with Prosecco and Roasted Melon juice. They are eye-watering, taste-bud tingling elixirs of deliciousness - drinks sprinkled with coffee beans and decorated with bird shaped lemon peel. Scents of wood chips, cocoa, honey and coffee surround you as you imbibe.

The alchemy of Nightjar is not simply delicious cocktails - it's the infusion of smooth music, decadent drinking glasses and delicate tables placed intimately together to invite conversation and booze-soaked laughter. It takes you right back, that old feeling, the good old days. By the end of the evening, we were laughing along with the Kardashians one of whom had a whole pine cone floating in her cocktail, and conversing with the trendy young man from Shoreditch who sipped a citrus infusion from an Art Deco glass with a superfluous but dainty scorched half a pear. As I took in the sights and sounds around me, listened dreamily to the band playing The Nearness of You and asked politely if I could sniff the empty pear half in his glass, I realised we were absolutely inebriated. It was time to leave and make our way, rather wobbly, back up the stairs and back to the year 2012.

I would highly recommend Nightjar to anyone old or new to London, who wishes to experience something out of the ordinary, somewhere where you can forget who you are, where you are and the year you live in, even just for an evening. Which is easily achieved with a San Telmo Swizzle and Champagne Flip or two.

Certain gentlemen of other days.
Who made of drinking
one of the pleasures of life -
not one of its evils;
Who, whatever they drank,
proved able to carry it,
keep their heads,
and remain gentlemen.
The Old Waldorf Astoria Bar Book, 1935

Night Jar

Everything is contrived; nothing is real

"Very often there's a kind of nostalgia built into a photograph by virtue of you taking it. You've taken the photograph and its immediately a thing of the past the moment you press the shutter".

I think that everyone needs to be told a visual story by Tim Walker through the medium of his photography. Even if you choose to detach yourself from fashion and remain unconcerned by who designed what, or when, it does not matter. Walker's work transcends fashion and design and takes you to a world that you could not in your wildest dreams have imagined.

Tim Walker is a London-based British photographer and moving film maker whose extravagant and romantic photographic stills have entranced his followers for many years.

Born in England in 1970, Walker worked as a freelance photographic assistant in London before he moved to New York City, working as a full-time assistant to Richard Avedon. On returning to England his initial focus was portrait and documentary work for UK newspapers and at the age of twenty-five he shot his first fashion story for Vogue.

I recently went to visit the Tim Walker: Story Teller exhibition at Somerset House and was treated to a visual delight for the senses. The major mid-career retrospective is sponsored by Mulberry and marks the launch of his second book, 'Story Teller'.

The exhibition is flanked by wooden floors and stark antique white walls that encourage the magnificent colours to pop out of the photographs. The fireplaces and radiators are also painted white and there are gigantic snails on the wall and lifelike clockwork dolls that make you feel as if you were trapped in his exuberant imagination. Wooden boxes frame photos of various sizes and there are huge red and yellow jelly cases displayed like hats on a hat stand. This is the best grown up's tea party you have ever been invited to.

Come with me on an adventure into some of Tim Walker's beautiful work.

MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH

Walker has re-imagined fashion photography in terms of its own rich history and Britain's cultural past. In the exhibition a life-size spitfire in blue and black and white whistles through the interior of the bare white room as if it has just fallen from the sky in front of you. These photographs portray a vivid reinterpretation of Neo-Romantic cinema: the doomed pilot of A Matter of Life and Death (1946).

A SONG AT EVENING

Walker's photographs are often rooted in childhood and tinged with a very British nostalgia. He is accomplished at telling stories conjured directly from a very youthful imagination.

Princesses take wing in lilac clouds. The swan, symbol of grace, purity and love syncs its sad song at twilight.

THE WILDER SHORES

To its earliest audience the most magical aspect of photography was that it opened windows onto the world: it provided images of distant landscapes, undiscovered people  and exotic flora that had then been as remote as the stars. It remains absorbing and a platform from where adventures come alive.

"Everything is contrived; nothing is real. You try to make your own real moments. And then you go home and make sense of it".

'What I'm photographing is an imaginary place that never existed but is often connected to something that has already been."

THIS SIDE OF PARADISE

A sense of loss underpins Walker's work and the impermanence of youth and beauty. It is difficult to look at his work without feeling a wistfulness of what will disappear. None more so than his portrait of Anna Piaggi who died at the age of eighty-one in August 2012 and who is already missed by the fashion world.

'Really I only photograph what I truly love. By this I mean I only get involved with and place in front of my camera what moves me uncontrollably deeply.'

FUN HOUSE

Walker is the master of creating  fictive worlds and a parallel world where he sees the world through a child's eyes - in evocative fashion fantasy. This is not a real life though, but a second dimension, where the beautiful and monstrous come alive. He reminds us that it is perfectly acceptable to dream and look beyond what we know in our own time.

"And when everything comes together and you look through the viewfinder, there is a window to something magical. You see something you have never seen."

DANCE OF DEATH

Walker creates pictures that should be impossible to construct and have an illusive aspect to them. They evoke an enormous feeling of wonder.

"I don't want to sound mystical but sometimes when you take a picture  - when the sets are in place - then something takes over and leads you. It's this sense of extraordinary luck and chance. The shoot is blessed and charmed, and you make pictures that you couldn't in your wildest dreams have imagined. That is the magic of photography."

COME LIKE SHADOWS

In Walker's photos nothing is as you might expect. When I look at his photographs, I feel like Alice in Wonderland and wonder if I fall down the rabbit hole, will I keep on tumbling forever? Magic is transient dissolving like shadows and dust in twilight.

A SLIGHT ANGLE TO THE UNIVERSE

Walker is able to draw out a narrative strand in his photographs, as well as showcase beautiful couture. He is also able to construct fictive worlds that are enchanting, sometimes impossible and always alluring.

'The way I work I have to have a mood in my head, a feeling for something, almost like a set of directions, a map of how to gt through the day".

CLOSE OF PLAY

In the end, Walker exults in fashion photography's pretends. The mystique and the charade, the luxuriant drape of cloth, the flowers and the decoration and the happiness of it all - the unmitigated joy of a works, even when it tries to be normal, just can't ever be ordinary.

Where troubles melt like lemon drops, this is the world of Tim Walker.

Tim Walker: Story Teller runs from 18 October - 27 January 2013 in the East Wing Galleries at London's grandiose Somerset House and is a visual delight for the senses.

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Fashion through a Legendary Lens

Sometimes it is possible to stumble across an image that you simply cannot look away from. The vibrant colours, the beauty of the subject, the setting and the overall composition - these elements can lock your gaze until you realise many minutes have passed since you first looked at it. You completely forget where you are.

This is how I remember feeling when I first saw this photograph, taken by Norman Parkinson for the cover of Vogue in 1957.  It still has that effect on me now.

Norman Parkinson was a preeminent British photographer who went on to create a dazzling portfolio of the most elegant and creative images the fashion world has ever seen. Born in 1913 in London, he was apprenticed to a portrait photographers, Speaight and Sons Ltd., and then by the age of twenty-one had opened his own studio with Norman Kibblewhite.

Shortly after, he worked for the British edition of Harper's Bazaar from 1935 to 1940, and then served as a reconnaissance photographer for the Royal Air France over France during the Second World War.

He went on to contribute to many established publications throughout his successful and illustrious career, including Queen magazine, where he was contributing editor for four years. From 1945 to 1960, and in perhaps the most recognised and successful strand of his career, he was employed by Vogue as a portrait and fashion photographer. It was a perfectly compatible relationship and one that spawned so many iconic images.

In 1963, Parkinson moved to Tobago although he made frequent returns to his native London, and worked as a freelance photographer until his sad and premature death in 1990. He was known as a charming, funny and very clever man. He never took a photograph without wearing his lucky Kashmiri wedding hat and often appeared in his own photos.

Grace Coddington, Creative Director of American Vogue, described Parkinson as her mentor after first meeting him on a Vogue shoot in 1971 in The Seychelles. She stayed friends with him until his death in 1990 and said that 'Parks was the father anyone would want to have.'

Parkinson also took his subjects out of the confines of his studio and into the real, and very beautiful outside world. Arguably, some of his most recognisable work comes from his photo shoot for Vogue in 1956, when the magazine opened up India for its readers nearly a decade after its independence and displayed the unimaginable beauty of this exotic location. He photographed models Anne Gunning and Barbara Mullen and produced sumptuous compositions with dazzling reds, pink and magentas that dazzled.

The beautiful images even had an impression on Diana Vreeland, Editor in Chief of US Vogue who commented 'How clever of you, Mr Parkinson, also to know that pink is the navy blue of India'.
An exhibition of Parkinson's work in the form of original vintage prints is now being held at M Shed gallery in Bristol until 15 April 2012, appropriately entitled An Eye for Fashion, 1954 - 1964. This will be the first time some of the images have been displayed in public.

Angela Williams, who worked as his assistant in the early 1960s and a successful photographer in her own right, has carefully catalogued and researched the archive to preserve his great legacy.

Norman Parkinson revolutionised the world of British photography and the wit, warmth and elegance of his work still lives on today. He had an unwavering appetite for fashion and location photography and the also legendary Irving Penn considered his photographs as 'remarkable stills'.

I still get lost in these remarkable stills. I hope you will too.

Where Eagles fly

This evening Crystal Palace FC played against Cardiff City FC in the second leg of the semi-final of the Carling Cup. The match featured an own goal, a sending off, gasp-inducing misses from Cardiff, some categorically shocking decisions from the referee and a final place cruelly snatched away by penalties. I am glad it is all over, but I had been waiting with anticipation for this game since Palace’s heady victory in the first leg at Selhurst Park a couple of weeks ago, and former slaying of the mighty Manchester United at Old Trafford back in November 2011. Sadly, we are not on our way to Wembley and my knees are all-a-trembly for all the wrong reasons. It hurts a lot.

You see, CPFC will always hold a very special place in my heart for a number of reasons. You can move the girl to the East End but the Holmesdale End will never be forgotten; a bus, a train and the Victoria Line may physically separate us but metaphorically, we are kind of attached.

I wish I could remember the first time my Dad took me to Selhurst Park as a little girl to watch a game but unfortunately it is lost in a blue and red haze. I think I must have been around eight years old, maybe nine, and I knew right away it was the start of a beautiful relationship.

Going to a home game was, and always will be despite our league position or the final score, a treat. A swift cuppa (thanks Mum) at the Greenbrook house in Upper Norwood always started proceedings before a short drive to Grangewood Park and a saunter to the ground beside other expectant fans. Sometimes you could hear the chant of the stadium crowd in the distance as we ambled down Ladbrook Road and if it was an evening game, from the hill you could see the bright glare of the floodlights illuminating the sky. I always liked it when the weather was cold and brisk as there was something very comforting about being wrapped up warm in hats, gloves and a vibrant red and blue scarf. I never felt the coldness bite as I enveloped my hand tightly into my Dad’s.

A quick detour over the petrol garage courtyard on Whitehorse Road for an essential match programme and some sugary sweets, we would hurry past the ubiquitous orange Sainsbury's sign and the heaving Club Shop bursting with memorabilia. A final squish through the click, click, clicking of turnstiles and suddenly I would be spurted into the ground - a sea of red and blue encircling the verdant pitch.

Even now, there is such charged energy within that red and blue community. Every time I go there, I am convinced I see the same programme sellers from years gone by. Ever present is Pete the Eagle (and his girlfriend in mascot-land, Alice), whose importance even merits a Twitter following: @PeteEagle_CPFC

Pre-match events in recent times also involve a real Eagle taking flight around the pitch before kick-off and, rather unfortunately, the Crystals, Palace’s own ‘cheerleading squad’ who were brought in to inspire the players and even made the Metro in March 2011 when accused of affecting the team’s form.

Attendance has arguably decreased somewhat over the years, but that has not quietened the thunderous roar of the crowd, extinguished the life out of the Holmesdale Fanatics or the habitual playing of '25 Miles' by The Three Amigos when Palace score. Even the most prudent of fans forget themselves when the announcer leads the crowd into repeating the scorer's name loudly - Darrrrreeeen AMBROSE! etc.

It is never an easy ninety minutes. It can be exhilarating. Surprising. Full of ups and downs. Gut wrenching, agonisingly painful. But it is always special.

This little team from South London has a fascinating history. Crystal Palace Football Club was formed in 1905 by the builders of The Crystal Palace and originally played its home games at the cup final ground at The Crystal Palace. They moved to the purpose-built Stadium Selhurst Park in 1924, where the team have also shared the ground with Wimbledon FC and Charlton Athletic FC.

Dougie Freedman, a former player, is now providing paternal leadership to both Palace's young starlets fresh out of the Academy and the experienced older players. We once walked in a Freedman Wonderland but we're now watching him lead our red and blue army hopefully to some form of success. Eighteen months ago we were on the brink of administration, players were playing for free and fans had no idea what the outcome would be. Now Saint Dougie nearly led the team to Wembley. An amazing feat.

Going to Selhurst Park for me is akin to discovering a huge book of memories, blowing off the dust and getting lost in the nostalgia.

Sometimes when I glance over at the Holmesdale End, I imagine that is 1988 again. I can see a little version of myself and my sister Michelle at the front of the terraces with the other children, excited about the arrival of the players coming out of the tunnel and waving back at our Dad. I am expectantly waiting for David 'Kid' Jensen to come out at half time for some pitch-based competitions.

The pages turn to the 1990/91 season where Palace have finished an astonishing third in what was then the First Division. The squad was is full of a host of greats including Nigel Martyn, Richard Shaw, Gareth Southgate, Alan Pardew, Simon Rodger, John Salako, Geoff Thomas, Mark Bright, Stan Collymore, and Ian Wright, most of whom have gone on to find fame in bigger clubs, in management or as a pundit on Sky Sports (*play extravagant fireworks noise here*).

Then, it is the 1992/1993 season and my fourteenth birthday is announced on the scoreboard in an opening game six-goal thriller against Blackburn Rovers. I am a little embarrassed (I am fourteen after all) but very proud.

Sadly, Palace often were defeated, and as a passionate and rather emotional young fan I would regularly cry with disappointment. I could barely stay in my seat when an opposing player took a shot at goal, but on making another great save, my Dad would utter those reassuring words, ‘don’t worry Nic, Nige had it covered’ and all was good again in the world. In around 1995, while a student, I worked in the now defunct Club Shop on George Street in Croydon which was to be the best job ever. First team players regularly popping in, a great bunch of work colleagues, free kit each season and an endless flow of boys coming in throughout the day. What was there not to like for a sixteen-year-old girl? Thankfully I declined the offer to feature in the Club Shop catalogue, foreseeing the endless teasing I would get from my husband if that ever came out from the depths of the Greenbrook attic.

Nige of course was the great Nigel Martyn, Palace's star goalkeeper who broke our hearts when he left for Leeds in 1996. Nigel once inadvertently gave me a cauliflower ear during his pre-match warm up. He miskicked the ball causing it to swerve backwards, knock my drink out of my hand and simultaneously take out me and my best friend Danuta - smack in the mouth. 'Sorry girls', said Nige. 'Ow', said Nicola, with possible concussion and temporary loss of hearing in one ear.

So you see, it is not just a game of football, it is part of me, deep-rooted. It is about where I spent some of my childhood, the special memories it created. It is about being with loved ones and friends who know exactly what it feels like. It is taking pride in a perfectly nice area that gets a lot of criticism for no apparent reason other than sheer snobbery. It is about being loyal to your local team through both the good and bad times (take note London Mancs) and spending the weekend looking irrationally and erratically at the Sky Sports Football Score Centre app and hoping that Jeff Stelling will tell you that Palace have won.

Yes, we moan and whine and vow half-heartedly never ever to go again/to rip up our season ticket/to support a half decent team. I repeatedly deride bloody Palace for being bloody useless and even if we were 5-0 up with five minutes until the end, I would still be nervous; there is no denying it. We don't have the money or the stature of a club like Manchester City. We get ridiculed, taunted as being boring 'Nigels' and we certainly don't always have a lot of luck.

Yet even though my old scarf may be tattered, the corners of the 'Holmesdale - Last Stand' poster that is proudly displayed in the Greenbrook ‘Playroom’ (refurbished, sadly, to become an outdoor storage space) may be peeling and the face paints are fading, they will always be Super Palace from Sel-hurst and will hold a special place in my heart.

As the Holmesdale Fantatics would encourage me to say, I am Palace till I die.

We may have lost tonight and our hearts broken once more, but I'll always be feeling Glad all Over watching this very special team.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VomkssQel8g]