dear tabio (a love letter)

From the moment I first laid eyes on Tabio - on the King's Road... it must have been about five years ago, maybe more.. it was love at pure sight. I was walking down the street and here it was: just a pretty, minimal space, lined with socks and tights in really really neat rows. I was afraid to pick them up and touch them but the friendly sales people encouraged me to, but in a way that I knew that soon as I left they'd quietly go back and clean up my mess. I got the sense that the job requirement was to be like what's her name - the red haired one in Desperate Housewives - I want to say Monica, but that's Friends - same thing. Just someone who is really really neat.

Obviously, I had to buy a few pairs. And I've been in love ever since.



So when I started noticing that other blog friends were tweeting about doing posts of their free Tabio tights, my heart tightened with a form of weird jealousy. I followed Tabio. I tweeted to them that I had a blog and I'd like a free pair of tights to post on it too and - Reader, this never happens - a few minutes later Tabio was following me and asking for my email address and saying, choose your tights, sure, yeah, no problem.


Needless to say, I was the problem: I couldn't decide. I had to go first to the shop, and couldn't get there for a while.. even then, I narrowed it down to the style that's like a cable knit jumper - they call it the 'twisted style' - but I couldn't choose between a creamy ivory, which is almost more like a camel, and the purple, which is the exact right shade of purple. (When it comes to colour, I always say there is no 'wrong' colour - but there is definitely a wrong shade of purple when it comes to tights). I had thought that this season I'd be all about black, white and camel, but it's turned into more that what I want to wear right now is shades of white and cream and bits of camel and rust, OR black/navy/purple/forest green with bits of unexpected mustard and turquoise: the deep, tropical, jewel like colours that captivated me last summer in the Dominican Republic during an unexpected rain. If I had those two colours, I figured, my wardrobe would be complete til next spring.

So when I told Kam at Tabio that I couldn't decide between the two, she was like 'yeah, no problem, I'll send you both.'




I almost don't want to say this out loud because this is SO the right way for the PR people at a brand to behave, that I don't want to give this secret away. If I do, every PR company will do it, and then we'll never know which brands to support. And we'll have to do like 27 posts a day. But had they emailed me in an anonymous group email and offered me a free pair of their tights if I promoted their product, I probably wouldn't have answered. When I'm chased by PR people, I run a mile. But they made me come to them.

Which, come to think of it, is exactly what any girl should do if they want someone to fall in love with them.




Thank you to Jennifer, last Friday, for shooting me even tho I so didn't want to be shot. You even managed, in the shots that show my face, to get it dark enough that we can see the details of the tights, but not my sad sack face.





I am wearing: faux fun fur jacket by Jordache (anyone old enough to remember the Jordache look? OMG, they still exist!) that I found in a thrift store on Long Island in 1994, a jumper by Adrienne Vittadini that I've had since the 80s - I have no idea which ex boyfriend it belonged to, or maybe it's my brother's - purple leather gloves by M&S, gifted boots by Mou, and creamy Tabio twisted tights that are so unbelievably deliciously porridgy cosy, that I'm wearing them as I type this. And if you want a free pair and you want to do a post, just get in touch with them: I promise I won't be jealous. There's more than enough Tabio love to go around.