Kate Spade

A and I went to have a peek around the new Covent Garden Kate Spade shop last week and we liked what we saw. I described it as “a bit like LK Bennett”, which isn’t going to set any hearts alight. But it’s much more cute and brightly-coloured than that – I think the London shop has had a more brutal edit than the US ones because the website reveals that the brand can be quite twee while Covent Garden’s stationary hit buttons on the whole scale from Smythson to Paperchase. It definitely hit my Glamour-reading funny bone as well with its many, many bows. I love a bow, and would have fallen ravenously on the handbag above if not for the hefty for the high-street price tag. And we LOVED the shop design, although the girl was right there so I was too shy to photograph anything. I know, I’m a bit of a crap blogger.

Intrinsically Florrie was a bit braver than us and photographed a lot of the shop but tragically missed out the best bit: the amazing cerulean corner with the perfect mid-century desk with sparkly shoes under it. It was the home workspace of our dreams and we have literally since been exchanging messages about what we would keep on it. I would keep a glass of milk on it. And the glass would magically refill when I’d drunk it all! And on the top would be the manuscript of the book I have written in Perfect World. It’s called something like “S Disconap: How I Achieved Lots of Respect in My Chosen Field and Made Everyone Like Me”.

I just checked and this stationary appears to come in every letter except…A. In your face blogbff!

Salut,

Heart-shaped necklace

This picture from the  Elle high street supplement caught my eye because I loved the dainty star necklace she is wearing - no matter how much fluff and feathers a model is wearing, my eye will find a dainty star necklace. It’s from Gogo Philip at Topshop. Apparently Gogo Philip is an Italian brand that has been going since the 70s.

I went to Topshop to find my necklace and was a tiny bit disappointed that the star shape was chunky rather than flat but I quickly got over it when I saw the heart version, which I bought instead. It was only £5! And I really liked the other designs, of which there were tonnes, and which tended to be more elaborate than my necklace. More Elizabeth Taylor than Alexa Chung if you see what I mean from this picture from their hideous lookbook:

But actually this poor man’s Tom Ford-style photoshoot doesn’t do the jewellery justice, and although it is actually cheap, it’s not tacky. Maybe I’ll go back and get the star as well…

S

LFW

The catwalk.

I went to Somerset House on Friday but I have had a very “relaxed” fashion week after most of my invites went walkabout. However, I was up bright and early to see Paul Costelloe open the week’s festivities and this ended up being awesome because I walked out of the show straight into the official opening, performed by Sarah Brown (wife of our prime minister). She looked lovely in butterfly-patterned Erdem, and here is the sneaky pic I rudely took of her behind. Nice stems.

I reviewed the lovely Orla Kiely presentation (above) over at Amelia’s Magazine if you’d like to read some of my show coverage. They are also getting illustrators to do overnight drawings of looks from the shows to accompany the reviews, and they’re lovely, like this one by Kelly Smith:

I do really miss Luella as I prefer the fun, girly, colourful end of the style spectrum and will never be seen wearing spiked stiletto heels. Orla Kiely unexpectedly fills the void a little bit. Mulberry dashed my hopes on this front and showed in New York, the traitors.

I’m happy if I can imagine an item on either Nicola from Girls Aloud, or Cheryl Cole (soon to be Tweedy again I imagine – think twice before that tattoo kids). Orla Kiely is a Nicola sort of thing, whereas Cheryl is a Mary Katrantzou girl I think:

I saw many sights in the exhibition where all the companies show off their wares to the buyers, especially in the underwear department, but the nicest was the little room where Laura Lee jewellers had laid out their table.

It probably doesn’t look all that exciting in my terrible, blurry pictures, but if you’re looking for a number or letter necklace, they are the most perfect solid examples I’ve seen: they’re the cousins of the Argos version, brought up in very different ways. I loved the stamped penny necklaces as well and chunks of rose gold with engraved letters; I’ve checked and they start at £85 so are be in the present-giving range.

S

Advent Calendar: 1

There are no chocolates in our advent calendar, just little fabulous things that catch our eye. What better excuse than Christmas to enjoy total frivolous lust?

Today, in honour of the surprisingly good read that is the Asos magazine, endorsed by both A and I, I present you with these gorgeous woodland rings. I am particularly taken by the fox one.

Recessionista Jewellery

Gold - always believe in your soul. A lesson to all bankers everywhere.

I like this necklace by Plot especially like the simplicity of design and variety of materials used. You can get it in lead, gold, silver, all the materials of the financial stock market rainbow.

Gold & Oil

They even have a little poem:

It tells stories
It creates patterns
It proves points
It backs up plans

But imprisoned by PowerPoint
Its beauty blemished by Excel
Data is overlooked by the stylish

PLOT aims to right this wrong
To unearth the beauty of perfect figures
To celebrate the stories of exact facts

Data is beautiful
PLOT is beautiful data

Lead is my favourite.

To be honest, I’ve never thought of data as particularly beautiful and I have short shrift for poetry on Fridays. I’m willing to put up with it this time though because the jewellery is very pleasant indeed. And I do like numbers.

A

Brooke Roberts

We have a lot of love for Brooke Roberts at DiscoNap and A has been sporting her sparkly spangly leggings for some time – my fellow Disconapper is at Bestival this weekend so gushing duties fall to me.

I love these necklaces from Brooke’s Spring/Summer 2010 collection, which are apparently inspired by brain scans – they also make me think of the cross-sections of plants and beetles. When I first looked at it I thought it was lots of weird people dancing. I do like jewellery that provides you with fun as well as beauty.

I particularly love big bold necklaces because they make my inability to wear anything except t-shirts and jeggings at the moment look like I’m doing it on purpose and not just mega lazy.

I am extremely loyal to rings and tend to wear one for years before suddenly taking it off and never touching it again. Between the ages of 15 and 22 it was a cool snake ring and after that a twisting flower on a vine. Both of these were great for fiddling with during long physics lessons/trips to the jobcentre etc. At the moment I have no ring, so maybe this spinning ring will be my next long-term digital relationship.

You can turn it and it makes new shapes. Excellent.

S

Asos outlet

How did I not hear about this? I’m not a dedicated Asos shopper but recently I have been hearing more and more about it and I eventually cottoned on the fact that it is BRILLIANT – the whole concept of slavishly copying celebrity fashion appeals to the stylistically lazy part of me that just wants to be able to copy a beautiful person’s look and therefore somehow paste some of their beauty onto myself.

It has also been made clear to me that they have a designer section, but I didn’t know they had an outlet – essentially a sale section, where 70% knockdowns on their designers, for example Twenty8Twelve, Splendid, April 77 etc, can be found.

On a tangent, I was snooping around this new Outlet when I accidentally tripped and fell into the jewellery section and was overjoyed to discover they have the necklace I have been thinking about for weeks after an “I saw you” moment – it was around the neck of a mannequin in Oasis of all places. I have ordered it, despite serious lack of funds, because when you have been thinking about something for weeks and then it suddenly comes back into your life and only costs £16, this is an OMEN.

S

Signposts

• Susie Bubble went to the Topshop press day and supplies oodles of photos of what to expect. It straddles that line between ” disgusting” and “wearable”. Some of my favourites are the cage skirt, satin bras and studded denim shorts.
• Apparently lowkey Paris label Isabel Marant is going down the luddite route and insisting people travel to actual shops to buy their wears. It’s stocked at Liberty if you are a fan but I often wish labels could run their own web shops where you could buy every single item from the collections and weren’t at the whims of the buyers. I know it’s not possible but it would be handy.
• Sparkling Whine has found the most amazing charms designer Miss Bibi, and runs down their top 5 favourites from her “boutique en ligne”. This is mine:S

Smocked necklace

Look at this cool textural necklace from Etsy designer Tinctory. I am really into plain but structured black blouses at the moment and I can just see a nice statement item like this resting on top being monochromatic.

Jacey Withers Jewellery

Waterfall range - One of my favourite necklaces from the range

A friend introduced me to her friend, Jacey Withers, jewellery collection. Jacey was exhibiting at London Fashion Week and here are a few pieces from the collection for your viewing pleasure. I particularly like the mixture of aggressive imagery with traditional materials and finishes.

A