The Beautiful People.

Richard Avedon's anonymous beauty. 

  
 It is hard to pinpoint the moment when I fell out of love with 'fashion'. Hard because I'm not sure I ever truly fell for her at all. The youngest child in a family of five, I always tried to find a way of re-interpreting an overly worn, multi-hand down, out of date and probably other sex item of clothing. Three brothers and then a sister who confused even the local priest with her boyish haircuts, scuffed up knees and inability to do pink, left me with little in the way of glitter but as Cinders would agree, it's when you're up against it that you really dig deep. So as I grew and would occasionally be gifted some money by my Mum, 'to spend wisely on a few new pieces of clothing to see you through this next year', it was understandable that I might find one item that compelled me to buy it. As I would sit on the cross-country train home, post splurging at the nearest shopping centre in the ultra glamorous city of Peterborough, my sister would be weighed down with a dozen or so bags bursting with dependable navy tops, reliable jeans, the occasional Etam number and a whole lot of grey. I however would have one bag. One item. No change. But I would adore that dress/top/jumpsuit. They would be the most fantastic shoes this side of Paris. The greatest pair of trousers East Anglia had ever seen. Fortunately my parents saw me as the token creative number in a house full of super brains and such things would be allowed to go unjudged. So it came as no surprise to them when, after art school I chose to do a degree in fashion design. It was easy. It made sense. I could do the whole collection thing, work the production, fuss over the details but I never really factored in the people.
 My woman, my world, the life that I saw being draped in my designs was never going to be the person that shopped in the boutiques I ended up selling to. She was someone that might appreciate the work I would do but lived outside of the business I was in. She was a woman in her husbands shirt and some jeans, collecting vegetables from an allotment. The woman covered in paint, wearing overalls, decorating a garden shed. The lady who always talked to my mum after church on Saturday evening, perfectly balanced in her dress, antique jewellery and silver grey hair. And then there was the lady who always carried her wicker basket with her, smoking a cigar, her perfect figure wrapped in a tailored shirt and slacks. These were the women I admired. To me they were bourgeoise left bank intellectuals who talked about literature, art and music. Not to say that is what I have become, this is all fantasy don't forget! But essentially it is this woman who made me turn my nose up at the business of 'Fashion'. For all its supposed glamour around show-time, its fantastical crowd of followers lapping up the next it-bag, it-shoe, it-girl, the beauty is pretty thin. I saw a girl crossing the road today, as I was waiting at the lights who, in all her wonky unself-aware ways was one hundred times more beautiful than any of the fash pack, presently pounding their pointy feet around the shows in Paris. She wouldn't have turned heads and she didn't stop traffic but in a world where everyone and everything is sprayed, polished and prepped to within an inch of its life, her natural and uncomplicated way of dressing and just being, made her stand apart. 

 Fashion will always draw me in but as I get older I definitely care a little less about Vogue' version of beauty. I've lived long enough now to see the wheel of style turn over more than once, repeating old looks with little change. True beauty is often found in the differences and I can embrace that thought. It's a whole lot cheaper to master. 

  

Hairy Stuff.

Artist and part-time hairdresser  Ron Mueck and muse. 

 It's strange, that old mop thing that grows up north, somewhere above our brow and - hopefully - beneath the crown of our heads. Personally I've always seen it as the more entertaining part of a persons get-up. Akin to the play-dough hair-growing toy and Girls World. It shouldn't be taken too seriously. Chop it, colour it, hell, shave it if you must - for most of us it will grow back. And if that is still the case, all the more reason to lop it off once in a while and see what happens. Hair grows and hats hide.
 My own barnet has paraded many different looks. The long, floppy fringe public school number, the gamine, elfin lesbian one, the orange out-of-control art school mass and the black, poker straight take-me-seriously 'do'. All of them have been fun but the best ones were all done on a whim. A bottle of bleach on my dark brown hair, over a sink at art school or a pair of kitchen scissors and a wish to look like Shirley MacLaine in the film The Apartment. A sudden urge to have an Amish fringe after a night out and various other bizarre creations dotted between. How I've come to have such a chaotic approach to my hair probably stems from the days when I would be dragged to my Mum's local hairdresser and after being sheared by the 'Creative Director' Tony, I was then paraded around the shop, my huge curly bouffant being the admiration of all the blue rinse and perm brigade before being offered my coat and applauded out of the shop. Outside and away from the eyes of my septagenarian admirers,I would throw myself up against the wall, stick thin arms rummaging around in my ski jacket pockets, searching for my ever reliable mop controller, the woolly hat. Suddenly I could reclaim my more inconspicuous look, having moments earlier born a closer resemblance to an over puffy dandelion. In fact, without that hat I was in danger of being carried off in the wind what with the size of Tony' creation on my head.

 Years did pass where I never went to hairdressers. Scarred would be the word. And now? Well, I still view hair in the polar opposite way to someone like Jennifer Aniston. Hair will never be my money maker but I have found peace with  hair salons. However, the general brief I always give to my modern day Tony is "cut it like you can't cut." And it works. Every time.

Shirley Maclaine in The Apartment.
Love her!

                                       

Honky Tonk

The nose is an incredibly wise old tool. It quickly alerts the brain to offensive food, delicious wines or alien environments so to ignore the hum that can radiate off your own self is little more than selfish. Living in a city, I am often amazed by peoples lack of respect for their fellow dwellers, whom you might often find shoved up against you on the sardine ride we call the Tube or our London buses, being forced to inhale each others smells and to remain impartial, too polite to tell the guilty party that their honk is not at all pleasing! I'm not just targeting the strong 'natural odours' here but the drowning stench of perfumes and after-shaves, both chic and cheap.
Scents invade other peoples personal space and when that person is not invited to share that 10cm square with you they need to re-consider their spritzing or they are straying into trespassing! territory.
Childhood memories of warm, safe grown-ups, who I wanted to wrap me in their arms, are tied up with the subtlety of a smell that only addressed my senses when I was close. They were scents that didn't smack you between the eyes and leave you unconcious but seemed to add a level of elegance and welcome to the person regardless of their face or dress. 
So now I'm an adult with small people around my legs all day and married to a man who would put Perfume' Grenouille to shame as far as the fine tuning of his nose goes, I am very aware of any scents I use. I stay away from most perfumes or eau de thinga-me-jigs. I have memories of school discos being saturated in a fug of Cacherel' Anais Anais and Loulou. The lurid staying power of Christian Dior' Poison and of course the sickly sweet pong of all things Impulse! For me a body oil is the trick to harbouring those lovely memories and inoffensive wafts. Body creams too but as far as perfumes go take it easy. It's time for low-key, under-the-radar, subtlety. When your next pressed up against a neighbouring traveller, on a hot, unforgiving day just hope they have read this internationally reaching blog! I might have saved you from a sensory nightmare you would never shake off.

my apothecary of nice whiffs.

p.s however, despite all the above I'm pleased Old Spice is still going, just so I could laugh out loud at this brilliant ad -

A Bush Woman Makeover

Lovely hair.  Lovely pots. 

Hair has never been my strong point. I have lots of it and it simply co-exists with everything south of my head in a very independent, I'm doing my own thing kind of fashion. And that's fine. I've grown used to that, some might even say 'nurtured' that because when it comes to my hair, I simply haven't got the inclination to give it the time it probably needs. 
It isn't that it is in poor condition (although I do remember some grimaces from various different hairdressers over the years) or lifeless (if I wanted a quick laugh from the kids, a nifty brush of the locks and you are looking at a human mushroom head). No, it's more that gorgeous hair, you know the stuff that swings, shines and looks like glass is ONE MASSIVE EFFORT. And life is too short for that. So, having been christened 'bush woman' by my caring older siblings since the age of about seven (when I nonchalantly went from long to short with a couple of sharp hacks), I have carried my cross and I think bore it pretty well until...I met Willow!
Here is a woman/girl (too pretty and with it to be called 'woman')who has that innate ability to always look great AND be really , well, nice. That is fine, I can handle that. The world is a better place for it but then I forgot to mention that she also has...amazing hair! Now, the reason this always throws me is because she doesn't look or behave like an 'I've got great hair because I love washing/straightening/fussing' sort of girl. I thought I had an excuse up until now - to look good, don't fuss, and then Willow came along and blew all of that out of the water. Bummer. So what's her secret?
-Oil!
-Any oil?
-NO! You don't want to smell of a chip shop. She uses a mixture of herbs and oils passed on to her by Bedouin arabs when she lived in the Middle East. You massage it into your mop once or twice a week, leave it for 30 minutes or overnight before washing it out and revealing a whole new wig of hair.

-Lovely. Lovely but I told you that I'm into low maintenance.
-Don't worry! She has started hand making individual bottles of the oil from home, which you can now buy at diverse, in North London...
-You mean even I could have hair like Willow'?!
-Miracles have been known to happen.
-I'll take the lot.

Bush Woman and her loyal companion, Bowl Head.

Organic Hair Food by Willow - £29 at Diverse.

lovin' those lines

Growing old gracefully - John Currin

A facial. Yes, I'm going to write a few words about this most strange of female (and occasionally mens') pleasures because for me it is always a little bittersweet. Bitter because on the few occasions I have laid my face bare to the hands of a 'therapist' half my age I have never come away with skin like moo mans derriere - when clean that is - and sweet because the simple pleasure of having the sole attention of a face polisher who is going to play you whale music, dim the lights and stroke your face for one whole hour is strangely gratifying. 
However the guilt of such an indulgence hampers the drifting off and the practical, no-nonsense, get things done side of me tells me to get myself off that bed and fix a shelf, run a marathon or get involved in world affairs. Stop wasting time and money on such vacuous female nonsense. Well, too late. Because for one hour only, the sweet, thoughtful man of my house has sent me for some indulgent ladytime in the hands of one lovely young creature at the Cowshed. 
So i'm lying on the examination/therapy table and I'm wanting to give the 'therapist' the impression of someone who regularly cleanses and buffs but instead I'm aware of my gulping in moments when she is surely thinking "she must be drifting off, I've got her, job done". 
But then come the extractions! For those who haven't experienced this Victorian ritual, it is a moment, or in my case a rather extended one, where your 'therapist' starts squeezing and no doubt squirting all sorts of debris and delights out of your pores. Now I don't think I can be alone in this when I say that the disarming nature of this procedure is the only thing that stops me from walking out. Yes, I am thrilled to know that my head is now half its salon arrival weight but I'd managed quite well before this appointment hadn't I? 
Post masks and more creams I then get a break down of all the 'work' just done and I'm starting to reach for my wallet. What potions can this white witch subscribe? I've gone from being a cleanse and moisturise once a day kind of girl to a serum queen who needs a shopping list of kit to stop my 'mature'-What!!! (36, give me a break cause I'm supposed to be enjoying this.)- skin from rapidly aging. 
And then the time comes when the 'therapist' very quietly leaves the room - do they move around like that at home too? It's making me feel very big and oafish as I stumble to pull on my tops and fumble with my dirty old converse - before you are invited to  head over to the reception and pay quite a lot of money for a very shiny, greasy face. 'How much? Oh...!(nervous smile)- no, I won't be needing the shopping list today but I might pop in next week if I'm prepared to not eat for a month'. 

I leave,walking out into the polluted streets of London, with a greasy hair line and abnormally oily looking skin and have a 5 minute moment where I think, yes, I must keep this up ... before being burped back to reality with four noisy boys whose only comment is 'what happened to your face?' Thanks though, boss man.x