Can't quite dislodge the words I want to say

I've been having a go on chat roulette. I think perhaps they should change the name to penis roulette because I see a lot more of them than I do any chatting. I'm unsure of the whole thing but should I come to any fixed conclusions I'll let you know.

Meanwhile I thought it would be pertinent to admire Nat's lovely boots:
No prizes for guessing the label - that simple chequerboard would have to be one of the most iconic designs in the world. Have a look a the back - the detail is wonderful:
I love the way she has matched the tones of the socks with the shades of the boots.The jeans are Paige, the socks are Wolford and the boots are Lou- no, actually, you guess and tell me!

I wore one of my favourite necklaces to ward off the cold.
Luckily I wore lots of layers too because those beautiful chunks of green didn't do much about the single digit temperature. I bought these years ago in a junk shop; I was reading Gone With The Wind at the time and I loved them instantly because I thought Scarlett would have loved them too. I like Scarlett O'Hara, she's one of literature's most impressive female characters. She gets bad press and I think is well overdue for a re-evaluation.

I wonder what Scarlett would have made of Chat Roulette? Hard to say, I still haven't quite figured out what I think about it. Fiddledy-dee, I'm tired. I'll think about that tomorrow.

In camera

I went to the Bondi Markets on Sunday. This is a fun market, smack bang smash on the northern end of Bondi Beach, filled with tourists and locals in sunglasses. The Sunday shopper will find a satisfying mix of crafty, vintage, stylish and practical.

I bought three books from a lady who was clearing out her house for no adequately explored reason:

*Cheating Death by Sanjay Gupta, MD
*Polaroids from the Dead by Douglas Coupland (I love Mr Coupland)
and
*Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.

However, I am still reading Wheat that Springeth Green by JF Powers so these books are balanced precariously on the Tower of Books That I Will Read Soon.

I also bought an excellent pendant from a shy and talented young jeweller. I present my new pendant in repose and in situ:
Cute, is it not?

Time enough for love

My stylish and wildly accomplished friend Nat has announced her intention to marry her gorgeous man Michael and I can tell you, I'm not the only woman in Sydney hankering for details about how stylish and fun this wedding will be. I can tell you I am one of the few to have seen the wonderful dress she has chosen but am sworn to secrecy. Oh alright, here's a hint: it's the colour of camellias and light as springtime in Paris.

Congratulations Nat! I hope you will both always be happy.

We have enough time to get old

Of course I could regale you with tiresome stories of where I've been and what I've done but this is far more interesting:


It is my new Givenchy coat. I found it at an organic food market, being hawked by the one merchant who wasn't' selling sour dough bread, buckets of mandarins and bags of raw hazelnuts. Instead she had a table full of scarves she had knitted herself and a rack of clothes she found in charity shops in her district. This baby, a beautiful leather printed with the iconic Givenchy houndstooth, is one of the reasons I'm considering moving in with her. This is another:

It is a silk-linen mix drawstring jacket made by (sharp intake of breath, grave unblinking eyes) Dries Van Noten. It is unworn. "Where did you get this?" I asked her as I handed over the twenty dollars she was asking. "Oh, my boss's friend has a lot of clothes she never wears and just gives them to me to sell."

On second thoughts I may move in with her boss's friend. While I contemplate that notion I invite you to admire the detail of both garments:
Perfect colours, goes with all my boots and scarves.

Ah Dries, all of your devils are in your details.

Tomorrow is the start of the core of the proper Sydney winter. It last for about six weeks and while it frequently incites snorts of derision from our Northern Hemisphere cousins, it does actually get quite cold. Because I am, as a result of my two week absence, grown a little unreliable, I am hovering between two garments tomorrow. One is the vintage navy blue Hermes skirt I bought in New York when I was there in March:

The other is an entirely impractical Prada skirt I bought at the same store in the same assault on my credit card:

I've been waiting all year to wear this, waiting for an occasion where I seriously want to be diverted from unhappy circumstances by the intense loveliness of a garment. Tomorrow with its five degrees Celsius and generally Mondacity could well be that circumstance.

Depends how you look at it

This is the same view from the same window, once again snapped by my learned friend and his new lens. Sydney is squelching after a true deluge these last few days.

I love how a view can change, and how one view can be interpreted so many different ways.

I am always intrigued how we can interpret a view, and how we can construct a view of ourselves in particular circumstances. It is one of my great theories: that really stylish people can interpret their circumstances and environment through their clothes. My other learned friend Nat, who has featured in this blog before, was in Court today and dressed accordingly. Appearing amongst senior counsel in their barrister's robes, Nat used a Calvin Klein dress, a See by Chloe blouse, a pair of Marc Jacobs shoes and some spectacular tights and given the robes a very good run for their money. Judge for yourself (see what I did there?):


Are those tights fabulous or incredibly fabulous?

Here's the brief:
*Dress, Calvin Klein, bought in New York in 2000
*Blouse, See by Chloe, bought in New York 2008
*Shoes, Marc Jacobs, bought in New York 2005
*Tights, bought from a local funky boutique called Pretty Dog just a few weeks ago.

And it all flows together seamlessly, which goes to prove the fashion mags right - buy classics and you'll wear them forever.

My look today said "It's raining and rain reminds me of every holiday I've ever had in the Northern Hemisphere." Thus I wore this:


The dress is from Gap, part of the range they made with Liberty fabrics in 2009. I bought it on the sale rack in Paris last year. The cardi is from one of many love-glazed sojourns in J Crew when I was in New York earlier this year, the belt was a dollar at a garage sale around the corner and my tights are Wolford. The boots (which you can't see but I am definitely wearing) are vintage and cost me about $30 on eBay.

My learned friend who isn't a woman but has chunks of glass took the photo while he was wearing a plain, utterly beautiful black wool Cerruti 1881 blazer that he bought in Rome in 1983. It looked like he picked it out at Armani yesterday. "I go through phases with it," he explained. "I wear it for a while, then put it back in the wardrobe and forget about it, then I remember it and start wearing again. It's like a little black dress, except it's a jacket".

I thought that was a lovely point of view.

The world where we live

This is the view from the offices where I work. Not my office - I'm a few doors down and have a very different view of the harbour - but the view from my learned colleague's office. He got a new chunk of glass today (that's hip snapper talk for lens) and very kindly offered to take a shot of my jewellery. I'll show you that in a second, but first let me explain this - it is looking directly north over Sydney Harbour. You can see the Opera House just to the left and that imposing baroque structure with the wrong coloured steeples in St Mary's Cathedral. You can also see the trees of Hyde park, some of which are wearing their autumn colours.

It's a wonderful photo, no?

The next shot is my Dianna Porter Sybils necklace. If you look closely at each stylised charm, you'll note they are stylised figures of women, complete with little bosoms and each etched with a word. I used to buy one every time I went to London, and if I had a dollar for every time someone commented on this piece, I'd be travelling to London more frequently and in business class. I wear the charms on a plain chain with my wedding ring and a heart. It's one of my signature pieces.
Coming soon - jewellery made by my very gifted friend Romana and hopefully more of my learned colleague's photos.