room with a view

It's the strangest feeling.. we're back home in London (a lovely city, don't get me wrong) but I feel like our ghosts are still haunting room 205, at the Hotel Vittorio (on Maronti Beach, Ischia, as previous post).

Our deck - as with all the other guests - was large, big enough for deck chairs and a table, lots of space to sunbathe, but we were always in water: the sea, the warm natural pool, the hot hot pool - all natural mineral spa water, no chlorine (I will never again consider any other 'spa' the real thing, because it's not).

Our view, from left to right. That's one of the guests, the lovely Miriam from Milan, waving. She always wore orange and hot pink - one of my favourite combinations - and became a kind of muse.

Second in my Vittorio series.

hotel paradiso

We have found, simply put, the best holiday in the world. Two words: Hotel Vittorio.

On Ischia, the Italian island near Capri (but better, less touristy), Hotel Vittorio sits on the most private end of the best beach on the island - Maroni Beach - like a white cruise ship, growing out of the volcanic cliff it nestles in. Everything: dining room, every room, has a deck facing the sea. Imagine, if you can, layers climbing up: sea. Sand. Next layer: deck. Glorious pool, naturally warm from thermal, volcanic water - with the kind of minerals people pay good money to bottle and put on their skin (our skin, as Katrina put it, became 'like a baby's). Then, behind the pool, the even hotter pool, shown above - a kind of hot tub, in a grotto. Sauna. Every kind of spa treatment you can imagine (my husband even did the natural mud - the 'fango' - top to toe).

Then layering up and up, three floors of rooms and decks, all with a view. And the most amazing Italian cuisine. Delightful staff, and guests who get it. As people arrived, bear hugging the staff, it was often difficult to tell who were guests, and who were old friends. As we soon learned, it's the same thing. We were the only English guests, and it didn't matter. Soon after our arrival, I started feeling Italian. Swimming in that glorious sea, then the pool.. to wake by going to the sauna, the sea, the hot tub, then the buffet breakfast.. peaceful, blissful days into nights, just the sound of the sea, always the sea.

Perhaps we were lucky: the weather was perfect - not a cloud in the sky, average about 88 fahrenheit - and we had the loveliest neighbours on deck next to us, Katrina and Hubert, from Vienna, who have been coming here every year for twenty years, and who are now our good friends. In fact, we're hoping to time our next trip with theirs. But who knows: we might not be able to wait a year. It was so easy to do - a quick hop to Naples airport, then a lovely ferry ride over (I love being at sea) that we might just do it again this summer - or September.

There is so much more I want to say about this magic place, and especially, all the photos I will share with you. This is a start.

This is paradise.

something tells me we're not in kansas anymore

We're off to Italy! Ischia, actually. With camera. So setting this in advance, hopefully when you see it, we'll already be there. Really into the concept of travelling light, not checking any baggage.. oh and we're leaving at 3:00, so just hope the alarm works.

This isn't Italy, btw. It's Venetian Pool. As before. 

magic water

When I was a young girl, in awe of something (I was awe struck a lot - still am, actually) and I'd say to my dad, wow, it's Magic. And he - an early childhood science education professor, who wrote books called Teaching Science Through Discovery, would smile and say 'It's Science.'

Perception is everything.

When we were at Venetian Pools, in Coral Gables, this winter, I was watching a young man showering. I'm older than him, and - he had appeared out of nowhere, it seemed - I realised he was probably the age my father was, when we first came to this seemingly magical place. I hadn't yet been to Italy, but it was like a Hollywood version of Italy, in the middle of a suburban neighbourhood south of Miami, created by architects in 1923, out of a coral quarry. And as I looked at the shower itself, the wabi sabi way it has aged so beautifully - beautiful decay - I realised that this is the same shower that my mother probably helped my younger sister, my younger self, rinse off when it was time to go.

This was the same shower my dad would have used.

It felt sacred, this water: swimming in it, bathing in it. After all, we're mostly made up of water. We're all connected by water. Which is, if you think about it is quite magical.

fluoro filofan

I remember getting my first Filofax: I was visiting London from NY with my English boyfriend, it was the 80s, and I got mine in basic black, of course. I felt very grown up.
I still have the Filofax, and Reader, I married the boyfriend.
And now, decades later, living in London, I am the proud owner of a FLUORO PINK, genuine leather, Filofax. The original. New and Improved. The 21st Century version.
I can't tell you how much it cheers me up: this weather is the pits. It's not just London - I'm hearing it's the same in NY, across America.. not to mention the Twisters, the Hurricanes.. I don't have to tell you. Today's outlook is 'Outbreaks of rain affecting most. Misty in the east.'





Even in the warm places.. I'm seeing 18 degrees for Rome, 20 for Barcelona.. which means nothing to me if it's not in Fahrenheit, and I can't find the conversion, but I know it's not great. Not for a day or two before JUNE.
So there's one of two ways we can go about this, I feel. Besides booking a short holiday to an Italian island - which I've done - I can sulk, or I can wear fluoro. I choose the latter.
I equate it to sacrificing lambs, or first born daughters, at a temple on top of the tallest mountain. Every day, rain or shine, I wear something bright. It might be a jumper, it might just be nail varnish (shown here, by Model's Own- I like pairing pink and orange. And I love pink with green, esp. lime, like my lovely lime Tina clutch, by #IJ). It's too cold for my hot pink plastic sandals, of course. At the very least, I can wear my hot pink watch, or carry my hot pink Filofax.




Shortly after we moved to London, I met Elle Macpherson socially. She took down my number. I'm not  telling this story to name drop about Elle, but rather the thing that impressed me most: she reached into this gigundous bag, and pulled out a hot pink Smythson book, and wrote down my number. Wasted half a page on me (and no, Reader, she never did call). But the luxury of that big pink book stayed with me to this day. Pink leather feels like the height of luxury, but a Filofax is more than a book, because of the nooks and crannies. 
It's a clutch, with pages.

Speaking of watches, my husband's been saying he's noticed that 'kids' (i.e. anyone under 25) have stopped wearing watches. He's noticed that when people want to know what time it is, they look at their phone. I think that's so sad. I love the quaint, 20th century items, like watches, like proper diaries. Yes, I have a digital one on my laptop, but it's not the same.
The thing about my Fluoro Filofax is, it's leather. It HOLDS things. I can use it like a clutch, put my passport in it, money, credit cards.. it's got a RULER, for goodness sake. It's a thing of beauty, a joy forever, and while I don't love my basic black one any less - it's older than most bloggers - I love this one.. okay, I admit it. I'm a Fluoro FiloFan.
So if it's raining where you are, and it's not a pool day, let a smile be your umbrella. If we all wear something Fluoro, who knows, maybe collectively we'll WILL the sun to come out.

more from old harry house

As before: our friends' house in Poole, near Bournemouth. England.

Self portrait with pink shoes.

Happy Bank Holiday Weekend, all in the UK, Happy Memorial Day Weekend in the States, and to everyone else round the world, Happy Weekend. Ah, just as I typed that, the sun came out.

old harry house: mid century modern

From my pre-digital, pre-streetstyle days: a weekend at our friends' house, in Poole, named Old Harry House, after the rocks, shown above when we went out sailing with them.

I am obsessed - absolutely craving - minimalism and mid century modernism.

As always - boats against the current - I'm drawn to the same themes. Can't resist a self portrait, for example, reflected in glass. And while I'm usually using a favourite pair of shoes, for scale, their little grey dog proved a useful prop.

sens & serendipity

Spiritual as I like to believe I am, there are things in this world that make me happy.

Amongst my favourite things are scented products, and I'm a fool for packaging. So when these four Panier des Sens en Provence products arrived in the post, and they turned out to feel and smell not just as good as I'd hoped, but better.. I cannot believe the quality of these creams and lotions. The lavender feels like a day in Andalusia, at a spa that had a lavender field, and we were offered armfuls, and drove off with it in the boot of the car, making my husband and I dizzy with hay fever.. I'm sniffing one hand as I type, the one with Energizing Verbena, so deeply lemony and fresh and also, pure essence of flowers.. and the Rose. What can I say. I love them all equally.

And with my current obsession with interiors that are light, modern, and minimal, these products sit like pretty bits of jewelry, or wild flowers in a vase. I love that contrast.

I feel like Julie Andrews, singing that song, raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.. as I was shooting these, the sun burst through the clouds, and the cat, sleeping lazily next to me, looked up. He must have been dreaming he was in the South of France. I love that kind of happy accident. Serendipity.

From left to right: Energizing Verbena hand creme, Rejuvenating Rose and Relaxing Lavender body lotions, and Soothing Provence massage oil, all natural, all organic, all made in Provence, all available now from Ashleigh & Burwood, London.

what the hell is this

It was one of those magic moments, today, with my husband in Holland Park.. absolutely kicking myself I didn't have my camera. Shot these with my phone. More to come.

Have you figured out what this is? See below.

incident on porthminster beach

It was a few years ago, when I was shooting in film, with my dad's Pentax - something I'm going to start doing again, I decided, because I love the quality. With film, you're more.. careful. You don't take a zillion photos. You choose when to press the shutter.

And you don't get the results til much later. When you're somewhere else. When the moment is gone.

We were on the beach near St. Ives, Cornwall - Porthminster Beach. It was my birthday - mid September, and it was that last glorious few minutes of sun on the beach, on the last sunny Indian summer day. Our first day of holiday, but the next would turn cold and dark and wet, and have their own beautiful light. But this day - it was like that line, 'made glorious summer.'

Later, I started playing with the image - zooming in and in, trying to imagine the story behind these people I never knew. Late at night, one night, I started thinking about how much you can read into a moment, frozen in time.

Below is the triptych of this image, and at the bottom, the original photo. Which, at when you look at it from a distance, isn't particularly interesting, or even a very good photo.

My husband just glanced over, as I was typing, and asked if that was a photo I've taken. 'Yeah,' I said, and kept on typing. 'The colours are fucked up,' he said, and went on reading.

it's fashion, jim, but not as we know it

Laura Weir, of the Sunday Times Style Section, has just said exactly what I've been saying, but - as always with this brilliant journalist - she's said it better. In the piece 'IS THIS FASHION' ('now that street style is more about attention-seeking than anything a sane person might wear, Style looks elsewhere for everyday inspiration') I saw people I know, have had lunch with, have photographed.. I saw the past four and a bit years of my life flash by, saw the trajectory from being a lone woman on the street with my dad's vintage Pentax (film, not digital), looking for normal people whose style I admired, which led to my to growth as a 'blogger', which led to being invited to fashion week, to.. this. Being a Papp for people whose career is built around going to fashion week to be shot by people like me. And no one's paying me to do it!

Which is not to disparage this sweet girl. Who I don't know. For me, it's still about portraiture, about that thing in the eyes, when one soul recognises another, for a brief flash, and moves on. It's about engaging with the subject, as they say, and then - one hopes - passing that on to you.

But it's not, for me, about what they're wearing - style is part of something, I feel, that is innate, and for me, far more low key. And the circus that's been swirling round fashion week these past few years.. okay, it's fashion, but not as we know it. Or wear it.

I had just walked out of the dark, almost spiritual quiet - that boisterous hush - of London Fashion Week, backstage after a show ('thirst', etc), when I was hit by this circus. Not to criticise this lovely girl. But it's so far removed from why I started my blog, started shooting streetstyle.. words fail me. Read hers, they're so much better. And more succinct.

full circus

When I was a college student, my boyfriend was studying karate, and I started studying with him. He and his brother were black belts - his brother wrote the Karate Kid, based on my boyfriend's story - and we'd watch our Sensai sometime. He was tall, thin, and Japanese. We never saw him working out, not in the way we did. My boyfriend was relentless: he was like a young cat, in his prime: still a kitten in some ways, bouncing and pouncing and honing his craft, pushing himself to new heights of perfection.

Sensai, on the other hand, seemed to metaphorically lounge in the sun. Once in a while, when no one was looking, he'd stretch, do a quick move, relax again. And then, out of the blue, he'd turn into a tiger.

That memory went through my mind this week, at Somerset House. I was long past the point of enjoying 'passing the baton' onto the younger, hungrier bloggers. I was done with the circus. I'd watched something I had so enjoyed in 2009 - the anthropological aspect of street style fashion photography - become, instead, a vehicle to promote people, mainly young women, who wanted to be famous and envied for not doing anything. I was tired of people befriending me so I could be their Bailey. I'm not a Papp, and I was never getting paid. Certainly not the £1000 per photos, as claimed in Suzy Menkes' recent piece in the Times, The Circus of Fashion. And then - when bloggers  you all know and sometimes love - some who acted like my closest friends - started ambushing me and stealing my gigs to get ahead, I decided, enough is enough. I've got enough friends.

And that's when I stopped coming to fashion week.

But it's funny how something comes full circle: coming back now, with the distance of time, I could watch the next generation, with their boundless energy and enthusiasm, and see myself in them. And just like the weather turned miraculously, blindingly brilliant - if cold - I felt a kind of golden something beaming down on me. I didn't shoot much 'street style' - only occasionally asking someone to pose. Like this girl, above. I didn't even get her name.

But it gives me great pleasure, I must admit, to know that I've so honed my skills that nearly every shot I got, I like. It's because I didn't shoot any of the people that seemed to want to be shot. I just - as I did in my early days - simply went for people who seemed nice.

I could post every day for a year with the shots I got in three days. So I'll take it slow. One day at a time.

triumph

Typing in haste: we're off to deepest Herefordshire, Birthday BBQ for my father-in-law.

A year or so back, I had loved a private catwalk show at Vogue stylist Charlotte Stockdale's AMAZING house - a competition hosted by the French lingerie company, Triumph - this is the winning design. So when one of their people asked me yesterday to spread the word that the first hundred women and girls to go for a fitting at their new Westfield Stratford store will get a beautiful pair of black lace knickers, free, I thought, why not. Life's too short not to get a pair of knickers with a twist. For free.

But now my husband is calling 'Jill. Jill. Hurry up.'

Ah, Marriage. The Fulfillment. The Hopes. The Ambition. The Clothes. The Shoes. The Flirting. The Seduction.

The Grace.