Lynn Yaeger

This amazing image from the wonderful Advanced Style Blog reminded me of one of my all time favourite style icons Lynn Yaeger here with another of my favourites

What I love is the way she layers everything with reference to textures of fabrics and those wonderfully muted colours. Believe it or not this way of dressing is not so dissimilar to woman I saw some years back in Bordeaux. They too would layer a dress over a longish fuller skirt.

From reading interviews with her I sense we like very similar designers, although I prefer a cleaner silhouette, but I still love her style.

That cardie trick is a good way to hide 'bingo wings'!

I once had a beautiful Fairisle cardie i bought from a shop on Beauchamp place. Oh how I WISH I still had it.

Oh those spotty brogues are brilliant

Memo to self, buy some red shoes

Photos from here here here here here here & here

Take one camel jumper

So having decided to inject just a little more colour into my wardrobe I have been keeping an eye out for something to pep up all that black.
I have worn to death a putty coloured cardie from COS so when I saw this jumper I knew it just had to be. It is by Label Lab. a kind of poor mans All Saints. (I love their clothes) I was not even shopping when I found it, I had taken the girls to Bluewater for some lunch and I always park next to the House of Frasier outlet, I really like House of Fraser, but since relinquishing the car I find it too difficult to get to Bluewater which is where I used to go and track down a range of bargains in their sale. I don't like the branch on Oxford Street and so had not been for years. This jumper was almost the first thing I saw and I did resist until we were walking back to the car and in the end I just had to have it.
I Love it, it is very loose, but hangs nicely

Some of these outfits will have to wait though as summer is most definitely over and these have a spring feel to them.

As you can see it works well with both COS skirts as well as the COS harem pants. I also like the almost Yaegeresque feel I get when layering it over that big parachute like skirt I have, but best of all it looks great with a 'problem' skirt on the far right.

Problem?

How so?

Well I LOVE the pattern on that skirt I love the weight of it too, a heavy silk but after years of trying to get something that is not too matchy matchy to wear with it I gave up. Dark colours look horrible with it such as black and navy, It needed a nice turquoise jumper but I find most jumpers are cut very narrow and so only have turquoise in a cardie, which then means I have to fins a nice not clingy t shirt.... and so the dilemma continued until I gave up. Then this jumper arrived and ticked a box. That is what I love about new clothes the way that they can unlock the potential of something you have had for years but never quite nailed.

Label Lab I will be back..

Snowed Under

my mornings are very different now, for the last 7 years I have got up at 6am made Daisy's packed lunch as well as her breakfast before getting myself ready. Emin is convinced she will phone me from Uni to ask where her breakfast is since she will often wait a whole day hoping someone will place food on the table!
She is however being broken in gently by staying at my mothers for 3 weeks with the intention of getting a job, the application of which I even filled in for her the other day. Seriously this is parenting at it's worst.
Annnnyway so now I go to work alone, seven years we travelled together, it is so very strange going without her. I also get the urge each and everyday to travel in the opposite direction to work, I am fine about work but I always get that desire to just go and walk around London instead.
As I commented on materfamilias blog the mountain of paperwork that I am wading through has meant a low blog profile for me, that and walking the dog, going to the gym, feeding the girls.....If there is one luxury I would like in life it would be a personal chef, I get so tired of thinking of what to eat, the limitations of their likes and dislikes are so great we seem to repeat the same food over and over like bloody groundhog day, i feel I have to tread that hideous tight rope of cop out ready meals V homemade food, I normally give in by Thursday and pray they visit their father for the weekend!

They call it Hüzün

A wonderful word Orhan Pamuk uses in his book to describe melancholy, which is currently fairly apt. I have just finished his book Memories of a City which is one of the best books I have read for some time, so much so I have just ordered The Museum of Innocence.
Other reasons for my melancholic mood? Daisy is leaving on Saturday, I keep welling up at the thought of this. I know it is the best thing that could have happened but it is a very strange feeling knowing she will go so soon.
Finally, and so sad, but a student of mine died in the holiday. No one knows why, it seem she was in Iran at the time but having taught her for 3 years it feels strange to think she will not return, So although I feel sad it makes me realise how lucky I am.

"The Frelinghuysen Morris House & Studio in Lenox

OK have to confess I have no idea where Massachusetts's is, I think the Bee Gees may have sung a song about it though!
I wish I lived closer because I would LOVE to visit this house. Knowing my love of house porn check out some more images on this site.

Take one......pair of loose leggings

My idea for a regular Friday post to see me through until the new year is to show you how one garment works in so many ways across my wardrobe.
Sometimes like next week it will be how something new breathes new life into my spring clothes. I thought I would begin with something old.
My Zara leggings, the reason being if there was a fire I would probably save these. Why? They are innocuous enough but they seem irreplaceable. I have a habit of being a serial buyer of certain items of clothing. Grey cardies, black skirts, black dresses, you name it, if I buy one I then for some unknown reason get the burning desire to replicate it. So I know for a fact that these leggings are as rare as hens teeth. Why do I love them? Well they have NO Lycra in them which means even when its hot they are cool to wear, they neither cling or ride up. Instead they skim and create length in the body which I love along with the little row of buttons at the hem. The whole 'wearing trousers under dresses' thing came with the package that is Emin, before my dresses were on the whole short or very well fitted, but what attracts a man is also what a man wants to protect and so I at first begrudgingly wore cycle shorts because one of the cruel ironies of life is that I do have decent legs. Eventually I began to wear trousers too and I have now perfected the art of modest dressing.
This is a life choice, before feminist hackles rise, trust me I get to enjoy a glass of wine and given the choice I will trade that over revealing clothes any day. The photographs themselves are shocking because the camera decided to focus on the smeary glass rather than the clothes but having played dress up for a day I could not be bothered to retake them sorry!
Left to right
V.old silk Jigsaw skirt and cardie.
My lovely phase eight dress.
My even lovelier COS dress with my heavy gold Massimo Dutti cardie.
That purple silk skirt combo you saw last term.
New COS dress that Leyla chose with a Uniqlo black cardie.

It is funny having been the queen of separates for years my current obsession is with dresses. I am today wearing that wonderful draped Isabella Oliver one I got in the sale. It is wonderfully gallerina.

Picasso at the Gagosian

Sometimes even when you think you have seen all there is to see of a particular artist a piece of work will surface that just blows your socks off. I have seen innumerable Picasso exhibitions and I love his work, his lust for life and the way he creates something out of nothing.
Yes, as father, husband and lover he was flawed but as an artist he has been a constant source of inspiration. I loved this exhibition and was really disappointed that the catalogue despite the hefty price tag of £70 had sold out before it came to London.
I pray they reprint it because it is full of wonderful imagery including photographs of Picasso working in his studio. This painting was my favourite from the exhibition, I love the muted colours and the way they are almost washed on and layered.
I did laugh to see the frosty gallerina's had been demoted to hat check girls whilst a very gregarious intern was manning the desk!