More unripe acorns

Every year when summer starts packing up its heat and bright lights, I start fantasising about the perfect pieces that, in my dreams, would make my wardrobe complete.


They're very simple, plain items. Number one on the list made it's first appearance in my dreams in 1998. I saw a pair in British Vogue. It was unbridled lust at first site and still is. 

Ah, Churches's brogues. They nail my heart to my ribs. I've stood at the window of Churches in London twice but both times have been flattened by the cost (at the time, with the exchange rate, about $500.) These days the strong Aussie dollar makes the cost a little more manageable but I still haven't found the exact pair I want. They have to be black, and not embellished or decorated in anyway. Even this pair, lovely though they are, are a little too fancy. A couple of times the perfect pair in my size has come up on eBay but ...well, we all know what it is to be outbid in the last seconds. 


The next item is a little more elusive. 

It's the perfect jumper, or sweater as our American cousins call them. This one is featured on a site called perfectsweater.co.uk, and many things about it is perfect - the cuffs and waist aren't ribbed so it just sits on your clothes without pulling and clinging. However, this one is wool. My perfect jumper will be a silk cotton blend and a dark, almost inky teal colour.  I'd make do with black if it was the right shape and fabric.


The next item is even more elusive. 

  The right trousers. Sigh. These come to me regularly like cruel mirages - great fabric, nice cut, deep pockets - everything perfect, all boxes ticked while I paw them lovingly on the rack, but it all disappears once I get them in the change room.  My trouser misery is echoed by every short legged, hour glass shaped woman who is fortunate enough to be able to buy trousers. These mirage trousers are from Agnes b. 


The next item is so elusive that not even the Internet can help me with an illustration. You'll have to work with me here: it's a bag, a hand bag, about 15 inches wide and 12 inches high not including the black leather handle. It is made from an expertly printed dense dark floral velvet which features plum, blue and green. It is lined with black leather and hopefully made by Rosenfeld. I found one like this on eBay once and would have handed over my every dime and one of my kidneys for it but the seller would not sell to international bidders, no matter how much they cried. 


And finally, the cream dress. It's a shirt waister dress, made from good quality broderie anglaise or cotton lace and lawn. It's plain, is amenable to a belt, not white and not beige but cream, falls just below the knees and is lined. It is a practical dress that I can wear with my dream jumper and dream brogues and also with black boots and severe jackets. 


Dear reader, she was waiting on my doorstep when I got home tonight. You'll have to wait until Saturday when I can photograph her properly in daylight, but here's a quick shot of her sitting quietly in my wardrobe now, assessing the situation: 

You should be able to discern that she is indeed cream, made from a strong linen cotton blend and fully lined with a milky coffee silk. She fits perfectly, got on well with my belts and   liked the first pair of boots she met. 


Yes Virginia, dreams can come true. One down, four to go. 

A box of truisms

There are only so many black dresses any blog readership can withstand and I think three in a row exceeds that limit. 


My clothing was excessively dull today but oh, my - the necklace. 

This is the chunks-of-sunlight necklace I bought in San Francisco. I can say honestly, in all my decades of wearing jewellery, I have never loved a piece so much. 


Please tell me about your favourite piece of jewellery. 

Fishing for shadows in a pool

One of the things I love about the style blogs - and there are many, many things - is the small window the blogger allows you to peer through to see edited highlights of  their day or week. It's very easy to form an instant picture of a person who gives you just a tiny handful of clues about themselves every day. 


Today was a busy day for me and one I dressed for very carefully. I had a couple of very important engagements and wanted to present a very specific, conservative yet not entirely memorable image of myself. When the engagements were over I was busy at my desk and spent almost the entire afternoon with the phone wedged between my ear and shoulder while I typed emails. 


But it was good-busy and I felt very productive. My learned friend and his camera, therefore, chanced upon me in a great mood. I want to try something different, I told him, can I see what the photos might look like if I look down? 

They look like this - a tousled haired woman in an an Anna Thomas silk-cotton blouse, a Warner's cami, Veronika Maine silk-cotton pencil skirt and Aerosoles pumps. 


My learned friend cracked a fine stream of clever jokes about my method acting. 

I thought my response showed off the blouse perfectly. 

The nomination for the two blackest dresses

I woke up this morning wondering what colour patchouli lipstick might actually be. Patchouli is a very dark oily colour but this lipstick is much more gentle and very wearable. 

I'd already allocated my day's worth of mental elasticity to the lipstick so had to make my wardrobe choices quick and easy, which is code for black: 

The dress is from Gap on Rodeo Drive (you have no idea how much the irony of that pleases me), the tights are from Wolford and the shoes are from Aldo (and part of my most recent haul).  

The pendant is from a vintage clothing store in Haight-Ashbury. My learned friend, who has now what can only be described as a free range lens farm,  has managed to create a photo that appears to have been shot in daylight but is in fact in my office. I don't know how he did that. 


Nat was out in solidarity with me in black, but more as a sartorial nod to the Oscars. Her dress is Marc Jacobs, the tights are Wolford too and the shoes are Chie Mahara. 

I came back to 812 emails. By the time I left this evening I had it down to 33. Email is no doubt one of the great enhancements to modern business but not so much as the delete key. 


And on the way home, we planned our next trip for (hopefully) January. Same hemisphere, different country. 

All this, and so much more

The warning signs that the holiday is over are all here - my lunch is packed, I've ironed my clothes and got my shoes on stand by. 


This final weekend was spent in the nicest way on my stamping ground. I started with a pedicure. 

On Saturday evening we went to the Rugby Union.  This might not mean much to those of you in the Americas. It looks like this: 

And there are hot chips. For the locals may I add that this household is a proud Waratah household. I don't dress up for the games...

... but I always carry a special bag. This week it was a particularly favourite vintage Gucci. 

I have a bit of a vintage Gucci bag collection. If anyone is interested, please make your feelings known and I will do a dedicated post on them. In fact it would, in this immediate vicinity at least, be deemed a public service if you let me rabbit on for a few paragraphs. 

I also ate a lot of no-fat Greek yoghurt, which I enhance with sultanas. It is quite a delicate procedure: you tip the sultanas into the yoghurt, stir them and then refrigerate the pot for about twelve hours. The yoghurt is ready to eat when the sultanas have restored themselves to grape-like proportions and are cracking the surface of the yoghurt in their plumpness. 

You arm yourself with a spoon, tell anyone who's listening "I'm just going to have a couple of spoonfuls", then proceed to eat the entire pot. 

I am looking forward to seeing my learned friends tomorrow and trust Nat will be ready to delight me with an outfit like this, which she wore on Friday. 

Those are Marni sunglasses. I believe the trousers Marc Jacobs and the boots are Sergio Rossi. 

It's been a good break. I'm well rested and dazzled by the happy wardrobe choices before me over the next few weeks. I'm already planning the next holiday because I think life should be a series of anticipated events and happy memories, like this one. 

Who buys this stuff?

Finally - I finished unpacking. There was a lot of stuff. I wondering if perhaps I didn't clear out Zara's entire US inventory, including this very interesting silk top  which I bought in Hollywood. I tried it on because I was genuinely curious to see how the ridiculously small hem would fit around the tops of my thighs. 

Turns out it doesn't - it drapes around your waist! This causes a lovely, pleated flowing effect in the prettiest colours. So, when people look at me on the street, they won't be privately judging my cake-distended abdomen. Instead they'll say, "Saints save me, that doughnut-munching woman is wearing a cleverly constructed silk blouse in a divine botanical print and there are silk rosettes artfully placed over her right lung!" 

Which is exactly the kind of effect I hope for from my clothes. 

There was posh makeup too. 

You'll note the shade of one of those lippies is Patchouli. Here is a weird fact: I don't know what that colour is. There was no tester and I haven't opened it. I have saved it for a surprise on Monday morning when I have to go back to work. I will be wearing Patchouli lipstick on Monday (unless it turns out to be a grey-sludge kind of colour, in which case the services of the reliable Jersey Road will be enlisted). 

There were a couple pairs of shoes too. 

Okay, twelve pairs of shoes. In my own defence can I say that my record is actually sixteen (London, 1998) and in any case we don't have Aerosoles in Australia. 

And more Zara blouses. This spotty number has a meeting scheduled with a charcoal pencil skirt next week. 

It has pintucks and spots, the two main requisites by me for work blouses. 

And there was a souvenir that I'm surprised wasn't confiscated by the Taste Police when we collected our stuff from the baggage carousel. 

The next time you're visiting a gift store in an exciting foreign city and wondering who actually buys this stuff, now you'll know: me. 

 

If the court pleases

This week has been a lovely one. I've unpacked very slowly, watched loads of washing dry in the warm Sydney sun, re-arranged my wardrobe, talked at length with my cat girls, dusted surfaces with extra care, read about life for young priests in their first year at a catholic seminary, found a handbag I thought I'd lost, run myself into a sweaty, aching, grateful mess at the gym and had breakfasts and lunches with friends I adore. And there were pancakes. 


I never get to do these good things during working weeks. 


But these pleasures come at a price - I've not been able to see what my friend and colleague Nat has been wearing. There are days I only go to work to see what Nat is wearing.  I've mentioned Nat before; she is an exceptionally accomplished lawyer, a creative soul who is blessed with exquisite dress sense and the most perfect taste. Yesterday she was in court and, in a sea of black robes and steel pinstripes, stood out like a hummingbird against a mob of starlings and not only because of her sharp mind. 

The Crown's submission: 
Black mohair blend Orla Kiely top with silver peter pan collar (from London) 
Marni silk skirt (from Harvey Nichols in London)
Jonathan Aston tights (London again)
Black Chie Mihara mary janes from eBay 
Not in shot but you can picture it: black Marc Jacob bag from NY.  


The photograph was taken by my other learned friend,  the Shillings staff photographer who is close to earning his royal warrant for services to keeping my blog illustrated and relevant. 


Ah, friends. Is there is anything in life quite so wonderful? Well, okay, that Marni skirt, but you know what I mean.