Tuesday 2 March 2010

♥ to go to bed on ♥

''Never stand in the shadows - you are made for the light. Now you must blow out your candles. But you must always remember the cake itself is nothing. The flame, the lights, that is where your future lies. You must have a dream. A great dream that is worthy of you''

MISSONI RYHMES WITH LEONIE.

While i have been in Paris this week, Vanessa and Annie flew to Milan for the Missoni fall show as she consults for them. I'm a little bit proud to have been involved with this and the show got rave reviews so clap clap for V cause she's done herself proud with this one. I watched online from the office and knowing how much hard-work has gone into the whole thing, felt like i was watching it with an insiders eye, the inspirations i'd researched staring straight at me from the runway. The fire, the flames of everything we'd worked hard preparing for Vanessa and ultimately for Missoni was red hot and alive, racking up some rave reviews too.




The show itself was rooted in an emotional italian, almost tribal, family spirit. Very Missoni and each piece was somehow stamped cleverly with the 'Made in Italy' marque. If you look behind the layers of clothes, you'll see the inspiration of the Celts, the Masai, punks, the kids at Burning Man all stitched into the souls of the seams. Almost everything sent down the runway had the potential to be something else too. Crop tops that were shown zipped open up the back were actually the wrong way round but it it all made perfect sense by the way Vanessa had styled it. I fancied myself one of the slouchy blanket coats but my rainy day money pot can't stretch to that just yet.

Have a look:
Missoni Fall 2010 Ready-to-Wear Collection on Style.com

Missoni, Fall 2010. Milan Fashion Week.

Saturday 27 February 2010

library day.

'Bonjour, s kuh vou parley angley?' i read the permanently inked and wrongly spelt phrase on the back of my hand with my hull tones still seeping through. o.
'Non.'
Shit. The conversation just got ten times harder.
With my cheek presses against the door buzzer i try and explain as best i can that i'm here for my appointment i made earlier in the week. A mans voice tells me that Museé Galleria is closed for two years and then it sounds off. I stand still thinking he's pulling my leg. The french have a funny sense of humor, its a bit creepy. I stood and waited thinking he could probably see me through a camera or something so slapped a smile on. the door stayed shut.

It was raining too. Not men, nor golden opportunities or scrunched up fivers. Just plain cold, february droplets and i stood outside with my scarf wrapped around my head like a loon not really knowing what to do. It was probably the rain thing that got me rattled but i pressed the buzzer again and spoke full-on fast northern language. The man behind the buzzer didn't have a clue and soon the door swung open. That old trick always works.



I'd been sent by Vanessa to research some very particular archive collections, which i have to keep hush about because its her ideas for her next shoot and yeah. sworn secrets and all that crossed my heart and hope to die lark. The Parisian libraries are very different to the ones in London. They are all strictly appointment only and they prepare everything you want to look at for when you arrive. London libraries should take note.

The building itself stood tall and was empty of anyone, the only sound was the rain pelting down and clip clops as i tottered down the marble corridors. I want to get married in a library, maybe even that one. It is so secretive and has a trillion doors that lead to god knows where all with individual antique handles. It was set out in a dreamy circle, with one huge glass window full of panes that where fighting the rain. Inside it just got better too.
The helves were so high they had wooden ladders to get to the tops, stools around everywhere and a huge oak table in the middle for the likes of me to work on. What a pleasure.

The place is very close to what my paradise looks like, only it was missing music. It needed Belle and Sebastian's boy-girl melodies echoing through the walls. If it was mine and i would love to have my own library i'd take away all the clocks so anyone who came was instantly able to loose themselves. And the smell, of tough old paperbacks that had made it from all those years ago, all the times their pages had been turned over and here they where. Lined up, tucked away all neatly in alhabetic and date order just waiting to be aired again. Issues of The Face, I.D, Harpers, Vogues that were ever made under this one roof.

I stayed for three hours and it seemed like ten minutes. I got what i'd gone for though, stuff assigned to me to find by Vanessa to add to the visuals i am presenting to her next week. I've got some really cool stuff, mostly focusing on the early nineties which i've pulled with the intention of doing a shoot of my own when i get back to london. which will be mid-march now, fresh from Paris fashion week and straight to grey shoreditch again. I'll be working for Vanessa from London on stuff for POP magazine. Need to start arranging my london hello's with the girls really. i miss them a real lot but one of the bestest ones, Amiee, is coming to join me for Fashion Week in paris so i get my fix soon. Not sure if Paris is quite ready but i know i am.

Friday 26 February 2010

A Single Man.

I always read the back page of the book before i buy it. I haven't read the 1964 novel by Christopher Isherwood so i had to go with the last lines that fade out Tom Ford's film adaption. It's honest and it's simple. A harrowing story of a man who hurt too much. It will silence you in a way that makes you question what our brief existence in this world really is all about. Get your tissues out and go see for yourself.

'A few times in my life I've had moments of absolute clarity, when for a few brief seconds the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think, and things seem so sharp and the world seems so fresh. I can never make these moments last. I cling to them, but like everything, they fade. I have lived my life on these moments. They pull me back to the present, and I realize that everything is exactly the way it was meant to be.'

Wednesday 24 February 2010

a pretty ditty.

If I want to walk in the rain with no socks I will do just that,
Just because the French don’t.
If I don’t care about the hole in my brogue and the black smears around my eyes,
Why do the French?
I am never going to be chic,
Like the French.

So I walk straight through the puddles with absolutely no grace,
Rub my eyes dry and push my hair off my face.
I speak their words the best my northern tones can,
I weigh my fruit like they ask and give change to that young homeless man.

I look and stare and watch people pass me by,
Imagine them a story in my head about where they’re going and why.
Who they’ll marry and when they’ll die,
If they’re honest or if they lie.
What they sound like and where they’d rather be,
Whether they look anything like me.

A thin girl stood all hunched up and cold,
Looks like a girl too soon grown old.
Her eyes are dull, like she’s not even there,
The sleeve of her jacket is split with a nasty little tear.
I think she’ll be called Hannah or something equally as plain,
She’s blowing cloudy puffs of smoke at me, like she’s steadily going insane.

What would she do if my thoughts were actually said,
If she knew what I was thinking up there in my head.
It’s then that I catch her cigarette stare,
I didn’t even realise she knew I was there.

I feel her eyes decoding my gladrags,
My thousand antique rings, the soggy spines of my mags.
She clocks the hole in my worn away shoe,
I look at hers and she has one too.
I smile inside and realise she’s just playing my game,
Us French and English girls are really just the same.

Sunday 21 February 2010

A french kiss.

I haven't had time to go to a museum in donkeys years. I went to Jeu de Paume today and it really made me think about how much i hate my picture being taken. i think it's just one of those things i aren't very good at. I must only have like three pictures i like and thats because of who i am with in them.
Lisette Model is a really key figure in photography and i happily wandered around the exhibition of her work which made me think about what it is i do like in a photograph. I hate anything that is too obvious, too tweeked and over styled. It has to be real for me too, a moment or a face that has something hidden behind it. I like Lisette Model, her real name Elise Amélie Félicie Stern which i absolutely love and am going to call her by forever.

Anyway, her snaps really left me feeling like she had some kind of trick up her sleeve, something about the way she used the camera almost as a kind of detection device. Her images seem to speak aloud and she made it possible to see what habit often hides. The distinctive style was picked up from having no real technical training, which gave me a pang of hope. Maybe i need to snap more. I always seem to get carried away watching things go by that i don't think to capture it for other people. Wise words of hers were painted on the wall and read 'Never photograph anything you are not passionately interested in.' That hit the nail right on the head for me. Selective photography starts tomorrow so sit tight and see how i get on with that if you will.

She caught the attention of Harper's Bazaar, who as her first commission, published Coney island Bather, a portrait of a fleshy, jovial swimmer at the seaside. This now stands as one of her most famous photographs and she recieved the recognition she so deserved for the moments she managed to cleverly capture on her film.

This is the snap i got stuck on. Looks like a romantic daydream. I bought the postcard of it but no ways am i sending it, it's a keepsake.


The exhibition is running until 6 june, 2010 at Jeu de Paume, Concorde and it'll only set you back five euros admission.
jeudepaume.org

look mum. i'm tidy now.

pleased with paris.

I am so happy right now. Paris seems to be the city of eternal possibilities. I have only one enemy and she’s called time. I just seem to be constantly fighting it, so big sorrys for not being very hot with the blog this week but it’s been a blurry one full of hats, hoods and wind slapped faces.



I’ve been burning the candle at both ends and all I am left with is a misty Sunday, a messy bed and a hole in my pocket. My keys have been in that keyhole before the man in the sky has switched the big light on and I’ve not been able to leave till well after dark. The lines of street cafés have lead my way, or maybe more astray into the nights.

It’s hard to pin down where time has actually gone but it’s way been my best week so far. I’ve had tears, tickling and total potty times with new friends that have shown me the real Paris and I am falling hard in love with the city. I’ve tried my hand at being a DJ in some old wine cellar club, which I pretty much just stood crowd-watching instead of concentrating on what I was meant to be doing. Met The XX there too, they’d had gig in Paris that night and had come to let their haird down and lark about. I had no idea who they were but they’re pretty easy on the ears, they’ll be getting a play in the office this week.

I’m holding the fort this week because Annie and Vanessa are in Milan shooting the new Missoni campaigns. I’m a bit scared if I’m honest, I got a hefty list of things I have to have done by the end of the week when they return. I think I’m going to have to be methodical and keep my socks pulled up. I think there will be a few late nights in the office this week though.



I feel like I need a months beauty sleep but that’s not about to happen. My eyes have some nasty circles underneath and my feet feel like they’re almost worn out but maybe that’s just my boots. I think with interns and probably with any job in fashion, you’ve just got to push yourself that extra little bit no matter how knackered you are.
And coffee by the hour. This week is set to be even madder and I’ve signed the dotted line to stay a little longer here so I need to find myself a new flat cause this one runs out in March. Paris has stolen me and I couldn’t be more pleased.


p.s i got a ride on the back of a vespa down the Champs-Élysées on friday night and didn't want to get off, like ever.

Tuesday 16 February 2010

meal for one please.

VOGUE to start
BAZAAR for mains
POP to wash it all down.
Bon Appétit.
x



five editorials by Vanessa Reid in this issue of POP to overdose on too! Go V!!!

rag and bone. rag and bone. rag and bone.


Rag & Bone Spring 2010 Runway Show at Bryant Park, New York. Picture this.

Kings of Leon frontman Caleb Followill sat up front watching his girl, model Lily Aldridge walk. The venue was dimly lit by oversized lanterns, the brick-walled Soho loft conversion could have been purposely build for Rag & Bone. David Neville and Marcus Wainwright deserve a big pat on the back for their very first stand-alone womenswear runway show. Fall 2010 is set to be a cosy one. Rag & Bone lead the way, with a heavy heap of style from Vanessa Reid.

Clap, Clap.

I’ve been following religiously from my mac, wishing I was there in NY with Vanessa to see it all myself. She consults for Rag and Bone you see, so she’s the one who bulked up all those snug layers, clad with the super cozy knits, camouflage anoraks and chose the palette full of plaids. Pouches on belts slouched low, bolo ties over button up shirts were mixed with knee-high socks, mittens and scarves really hitting the nail on the head with accessorize. The collection was sent down the runway to the catchy mixings of Thom Yorke and the front row was lined for the runway stunners like Sasha Pivovarova, Kasia Struss and Sigrid Agren along with newer faces like Lisanna De Jong and Keke Lindgard to strut to. Their messy hair tucked into their scarves made me promise myself I am not cutting my hair anytime soon. I swear on Rag & Bone.

I think I would sell my dog to get my hands on a pair of the stack-heel hiking boots or maybe just turn up for work bare-foot next week and hope for the best?

Vogue Queen Anna Wintour and Grace Coddington sat up front, smiling. Seeing things like this make me proud to be Vanessa’s intern, she’s standing out at the forefront of styling right now and just like me was an intern beforehand.

Vanessa assisted Marie-Amelie Sauve, who is a regular contributor to American, French and Italian Vogue. Wit woo. Marie-Amelie also consults for several fashion houses including Balenciaga and has shot with photographers like Mario Testino, Steven Meisel and David Sims. So Vanessa knows what she’s doing alright and is now storming ahead alone. Fingers crossed I can take a leaf out of her book but i'm set to stay another month here in Paris, so need to pull my socks up and get my creative
I think I might actually want to be a stylist. Scary. Oh god, better call my mum and wave hello to a lot more hard work.

Saturday 13 February 2010

more fleas, please!

I woke up super early today because I hadn’t had the definite go-ahead to have the day off. Luck must have been on my side though, cause a text came through telling me I’d be needed Sunday instead. So I spent the morning with Paris, aching for some newbie pieces to put my wardrobe in good stead for next week’s appointments. It’s hard to be able to afford all my frocks for work, so I headed for the thrift stores and a flea market over the river. I had twenty euros in my purse, a croissant stuffed in my pocket and about a million layers on under my trench.



I arrived super early and it was like a vintage ghost town, just beyond the gate at Clingnancourt. Just me and jack frost ready to take on the treasure hunt of these tiny lanes and make-shift stalls. Grannies wrapped up in fur sat with their papers and coffees outside their stands offering smiles and tempting me into their caves of vintage. I promised myself I would go steady and had to stick to things I needed. Some new boots and maybies another coat. Problem. I came away with a polka-dot vintage two-piece, two silver beauties and some sheepskin mittens but it’s all pretty special and cost almost nothing. I controlled myself on the crockery stalls, teacups are my sweetest downfall but today I managed to come away with just one. When I have a house of my very own, my cupboards will be full of mixed up china, the cups won’t match the saucers and the spoons will never be the same and you’ll get what your given.

On an interns salary, which is near nothing really, your imagination becomes worth more than the pennies in your purse. The trick of an intern is to do things on the cheap and still turn out like a show pony day in day out. With five years of fashion debt behind me and now my rent in Paris to scramble together, i try to change things little and often. After all, we need to save some spends for after-work drinks to do all that networking lark in this never ending story of interning.
I’ve got a pink-rinse on the go at the moment, my silvery crop takes a dose of it every two weeks and it varies from pinks to lilacs to blues, depending on how long I leave the stuff on for. It’s pretty candyfloss at the moment, maybe I need to calm it?

Accessorise are a blessing too, they can instantly put a new spin on a frock and I’ve got a box full of necklaces, rings, brooches and hair slides I play dress up with. There’s so much hidden away in flea markets, jumble sales and even in the back of my mums wardrobe, that it’s just a case of injecting a dose of your imagination, mixing a little bit of new with the old and making it something that’s yours. For me it’s a case of doing what I can with what I’ve got and right now I haven’t got two pennies to rub together so will be a regular Saturday morning girl at the French fleas from now on. Voila.

i'm selling ten dots a dime.


polka dot, polka dot, give me the best you've got.


my new best friends.