give me a ring

There's also a song I cannot get out of my head: I am singing it as I type this, and I didn't even like it years ago - but it plays in the cafe where I write, and now, I'm giving it to you - like a gift - so you might, or might not, get it stuck in YOUR head:



Does this ever happen to you? You'll have a flash of a memory and realise, no, that didn't happen, it was a dream. But you can't remember the dream. Yesterday I was at the V&A, I was meant to meet a friend and went early, to be alone and write (I'm finishing my novel), and the water is still in the pool in the middle, but you can't get there cause they've laid down a new lawn. And the cafe was closed. But I had taken these rings here when I first met my lovely, beautiful (in ever sense of the word) friend Alexandra, of Mon&me, to see this amazing collection of KumKum silver jewelry up close. And to talk about the line, which isn't yet available in the UK: it's only starting to. Mon&me are the sole distributors.






Anyway: the dream. It wasn't a full dream, just a flash of an image of someone wearing my Swedish KumKum ring (that's mine: that gorgeous indigo blue zircon cocktail ring, solid silver, heavy and magic, like the eye of God - I feel like it's my Muse, I seem to write better when it's on), only what I remembered - or thought I did - was meeting someone who was wearing the version with the black stone - but turquoise stones surrounding it. But that didn't happen. It was only a dream.

The prices are really good, for solid silver, handmade, beautifully, uniquely different. The middle shot, for example: it's like a wedding ring - and it can be a wedding ring - but in the context of being on this finger (I wear mine on a middle finger) it is just so elegant. And delicate. You can't yet buy these rings at a store in the UK, but we're working on that! In the meantime, best to simply contact Alexandra directly.

I love, by the way, how English people say 'give me a ring' or 'ring me'. So old fashioned. Much better than 'tweet me' or worse, 'follow me.' Don't follow anyone, I say! Be your own person.

BRILLIANT blue skies: I hope no one is reading this, that you're all outside, having fun.

KumKum rings are available online, or better yet, if you'd like to see them in person, or buy them in the UK, call or email Alexandra at Mon&me. Tell her Jill sent you.

boats against the current: my fashion forward crystal ball

'So much for your global warming', says my husband, Mr. Dot.

He was a good sport about driving to Surrey to swim at the outdoor heated pool, but when we got there, at 11:00 (having had a lovely chat with one of my closest friends, Natayla, editor of 'it's fashion week'), it was really cold. I mean, I could have done it like on Saturday, but then I paid the price on Sunday. We just turned around, went for a drive, found a BRILLIANT pub for lunch (The Old Bear, in Cobham), as good or better than the one on Saturday (called, coincidentally, The Bear - more like the New Bear, in Oxshott).




Then we drove home, sleepy as Dorothy in the Poppy Fields. We are determined, in principle, not to turn the heat on in August, so stayed alive instead via hot cups of P.G. Tips. And as I almost dozed in front of the TV, shivering under my first birthday present from the future Mr. Dot (a thick white terry robe from Abercrombie & Fitch), I stumbled on a fabulously naff British film from 1960, The Time Machine, based on an H.G. Wells story. When it got to the part where they were in the 'future' - 1966 - what got me, besides the hilarious 'special effects' as the world ended with a lot of paint and model cars and screaming, was how they envisioned the future, style wise.




I mean, it hit me: they had no concept, in 1960, of the Beatles with their little suits and ties. No Twiggy, or Courreges, or Mary Quant, no mini skirts, or Biba.. NOTHING. The people were dressed just like they were in 1960, men in suits and hats and women in shirtwaist dresses to their knees, running and screaming. Oh and of course, the obligatory man in a tin foil jumpsuit.

So I pose to you: how do you see the future, fashion wise, in 2020? Or for that matter, simply this fall?



I've been trying to console myself this week, letting go of summer and trying to look forward to fall. Pulling from my past, from the clothes I've already got, honing my style, composing combinations in my head in the same way I like to play around with foods I love. The magazines are no help: the Sunday Times Style section tell us it's Fifties - or is Eighties? And we've got the Boho (Seventies) to look forward to - which is actually backwards. Other experts tell us it's Sixties again! (Hooray. I've always loved the Sixties). I'm sure we'd be channeling the Nineties, if anyone could figure out what people actually wore that decade.

It almost makes me wonder if The Industry, this season, hasn't a clue, and is looking to us to tell us what the trends will be.



I mean, let's see, we've got lace, especially in unexpected combination with more masculine materials. And boots, we've got boots. We've got black: how new! And aviator leather jackets lined with shearling, as every designer AND high street have their version. Chris Bailey @ Burberry has already moved on to pea jackets (which I love, too) and of course, everything will be in camel, the Colour Formerly Known as Tan. (I must say, I love the 'rebranding' of a colour: when beige became nude, we somehow saw it in a new light. I've always worn tan, so calling it camel works for me! And while some insiders swear camel will feel 'new' with red, I keep remembering Natalie in camel and hot pink last fashion week, a combo I've always worn anyway, and will, in the future. Apart from shoes, I'm just wondering: is anything in the fashion world new these days?

Self portraits shot in Joshua Tree, California, before many of you were born. Rust suede jacket, my father's, which I still have, and love, and will continue to wear, shot on David, my ex's, ranch in New Mexico (he's still a friend to both of us). That black fine ribbed knit mini dress, I have no idea who made it, but I still have it.

So, how do you see the future? I keep thinking of that magnificent last paragraph in The Great Gatsby: about being ceaselessly borne back into the past. Or something like that. Ah! Here it is, in my dusty old vintage copy, with the rose pink cover:

'Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning ---

So we beat on, boats against the current, born back ceaselessly into the past.'

See you at fashion week. What are you wearing?

you can lead a horse to water

Each season, the industry predicts a few trends that we never see on the street -  or anyone's body. It's a horse and water thing, I've noticed. Some styles they just can't make us drink. For example: I predict we are not going to wear harem pants. Has anyone out there bought any? If so: are your labels still on them? Have you worn them? Why'd you buy? To hide figure flaws? I mean: they don't even look good on models!

Okay, that's my rant for the day. I can be totally wrong - might just be my own taste. But my friends aren't wearing them, nor am I seeing them on the street. Someone out there, please: prove me wrong! If you send me a shot of someone looking good in them, I'll put it up. Cross my heart!