leaning towards lilac

And leaning towards the light.

But I don't mean top to toe pastel: I think the whole secret of working the pastel/sorbet/sherbet thing this spring is to not go all sugary. Same advice, actually, when making cupcakes. Keep the pastels muted, mix with lovely warm neutrals like camel or tan or griege, or if you go grey or blueish grey, that's lovely too, especially with nude, peach, ballet pink.. it's subtle, it's sophisticated, and there are endless variations.



Actually.. duh, why didn't I think of this earlier? I've been searching on the street for that lilac/camel colour combination I've got in my head, and all along.. this is from my first fashion shoot, last September. Georgie, left, and Estelle, in vintage furs and lilac frocks. Georgie's is Cacharel (that's a brand that seemed to have disappeared: but style.com has their recent catwalk show - for the first time since 2003! Bit of trivia). I met Georgie and Estelle separately and threw them together for this shoot, by the time we did this change of clothes, the sixth, they were old friends, and went out clubbing together the next night.

Isn't it funny: life. Sometimes, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, you can search for something that's in your own backyard. Metaphorically speaking.

What's your favourite colour combination of the moment?

grey matters

Been musing on the (non)colour grey, and how it's the new Pink. As in, this summer, having shed the black that was everywhere this spring (see going grey) it's somehow morphed into a pastel. We haven't seen grey in summer before since.. not in my lifetime. Grey was the new black back around 1999, but that was winter, you'd expect that. But now, it has become part of that pale pastel palette I was going on about the other day. It's actually starting to feel like a colour to me.

Here are two good examples, above, my friend LIz, in grey, outside the V&A (I'm a poet & I know it : ) and top, on a Mystery Brunette with a great smile (three, if you count the girl with the ice cream cone. No, wait, FOUR: the guy near the red phone box in Liz's shot). Liz & Mystery Brunette have different skin tones and hair colour, yet they're wearing almost the same shade of grey. And it works on everyone. Which is the first requirement in any colour that's competing for the honour of being new Black. Or, in this context, the new Pink.

because everyone needs a little laduree

My friend Hind has just left London, and I miss her. We haven't been friends very long - since sometime in March. I had a quota to fill for a lovely LA company that was sending me out to spot trends in London, and she was wearing the perfect outfit for my 'ladylike Chanel' theme ( 'cuckoo for coco'). Last month or so, we'd been kicking around a plan to meet for coffee and she kept mentioning Laduree, which I'd never been to.



Well the morning we met, I'd been having a really rough time with some Mean Girls I was doing a freelance project with, and which I've since ended, waiving any fee, just to be free of them. I was feeling really low, beat up, that schoolgirl feeling, and she was just so lovely, so kind. We were on this theme of 'what is WRONG with these women?'



I really do feel there are two types of women in this world: those who see other women as competition, and those who see women as sisters. And sitting in these gorgeous surroundings, evocative of childhood memories of all things Parisian (altho I hadn't yet gone, it was just in my imagination).. located in a corner of Harrods, sipping lattes and nibbling on the most magical, transporting, dense, intense flavours in deceptively pale packaging.. I started to feel whole again. We talked of our parents, our husbands, her children, life, death, love, grief, joy, for over two hours, and at the time neither of us knew (altho she had an inkling) that she'd be soon moving from London, back to Morrocco, where her father was born (her mother was Parisian), and where her husband is from.



It may seem like a small thing, but while I was in the ladies' room, she swiftly, quietly, settled the bill. She said I could get it 'next time.' My dear friend Jodi did the same thing that week, at another favourite place, Casa Brindisi, when I was also whinging to her about those same Mean Girls. Those two visits, with strong, gentle, wise, beautiful women, were just the nourishment I needed. Those moments, and a few others in beautiful settings with equally beautiful friends, like my dear friends Amanda and Bronwyn, turned around the direction of my spring and summer. I guess what I'm saying is, every once in a while, we all need a little Laduree.



I remember reading that Sophia Coppola, who was based in Paris at the time when she created the magnificent film, Marie Antionette, brought a box of macarons to a meeting and told the production designer: I want my film to look and feel exactly like these macarons.



What does this have to do with fashion? Nothing really, except that back in March, Hind predicted that this season we'd start out wanting bold colours, but as the weather got warmer, we'd move towards pale pastels and floaty flirty dresses in mint greens, pale pinks, beige and corals and turquoise. The colours, in fact, of those magic macarons.