sweet silver bells

Okay: first of all, do you have any idea how hard it was to find this song on youtube? Try typing in 'merry merry merry Christmas,' which was the only part of the lyrics I remembered at first, and then 'Christmas is here'. I'll save you the trouble: you'll just have to trust me, you can come up with a hell of a lot.

Thursday night, I ventured out with the bug I had been trying to nip in the bud, via bus then on foot, in the rain, because my friend Veronika, who is a knitwear designer, was part of a catwalk show at the London College of Fashion. I was walking down Oxford Street and finally admitted to her by phone that I just couldn't do it. She was totally understanding, because she's lovely, and gave me her blessing to go back home, and as I turned to do the reverse journey home and pick up noodle soup at Wasabi along the way, suddenly I was hit with a flash of memory: the lights on Oxford Street, the taxis in the rain, and, suddenly, my heart swelled with something absolutely MAGIC, deep, mystical memory, and my head started playing this song:



Hark how the bells, sweet silver bells, all seem to say, throw cares away, Christmas is here, bringing good cheer, to young and old, meek and the bold, Oh how they pound, raising the sound, o'er hill and dale, telling their tale, Gaily they ring, while people sing songs of good cheer, Christmas is here, Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas, Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas, On on they send , on without end, their joyful tone to every home Dong Ding dong ding, dong Bong

Weirdly, on the comments, someone wrote this: "This is the song that plays in my head when I'm epic-ly shopping for Christmas presents."

So sick as I was feeling, I pulled out my camera and started shooting, in a trance.

Sartorically, what I'm craving now - what I feel like wearing, all of a sudden - is dark, black, navy, midnight, shiny shiny shiny sparkles, velvet and sequins and for the day, denim and black jumpers and gold and silvery jewelry.

This is the first of my new series of juxtapositions: instead of giving you two separate shots, I'm mixing images together now. The catwalk shot is from Corrie Nielsen's show last February: her A/W 2011 show, ('corrie, corrie'), the show that had intrigued me because she was from Florida, studied at Central Saint Martin, was influenced by Vivienne Westwood, and, having never seen her work before, she had said her inspiration came from the both the Elizabethan period, and 1940s and 1950s French haute couture. THAT juxtaposition caught my curiosity.

I will continue this series - mixing Corrie's and other designers' work with Oxford Street Christmas lights, and want to remind you about next weekend's VIP weekend: Oxford/Regent Streets, traffic closed to the public, really magic Old English themes going on, for kids, adults, carols: I really hope I"m well enough to go. Oh and anything you spend in the West End, American Express will donate £1 to Kids Company, so bring your AmEx card!