I did not take this photo, shot yesterday in Paris. Alex did. Alex, of La Perle a Paris. Alex, who I have not yet met. My new friend Alex, who I introduced to Reid, virtually. Reid Peppard, who is my taxidermist artist jewelry designer friend, Reid of RP/Encore, from California, who dresses Lady Gaga in rat hats & lives in East London with her English artist boyfriend. Reid, who coincidentally, it transpires, lived a few miles from Alex, growing up. Anyway: thanks to a few tweets, they're now friends. And they had already met each other: by mistake! Mistake, of course, or Serendipity.
There's more to this story and I will continue tomorrow - it's late, it's freak summer here, but what I can't get over is when I asked Alex to send me some photos - to be my eyes & ears for Paris fashion week - what I didn't expect is that SHE HAS MY EYE.
This is not a street shot by me, but I wish it was.
If anyone is reading this while having lunch (UK/Greenwich Mean Time), breakfast (US - Eastern Seaboard) or any other meal anywhere in the world - probably best to turn away from your screen now. Because I'm going to talk about my friend Reid Peppard, and her rats.
It's not just rats. It's road kill. Fox molars. It's the kind of gross stuff that makes girls go 'yuck'.
Reid is brilliant. She's beautiful, for starts - a California girl who graduated from Central Saint Martins, lives with her artist boyfriend in East London, works at her studio every day, come rain, come shine, and who at the moment, has a Snot Bag for a head, so I'm doing this post as a little get well gift. Along with a little ditty from UB40, which you can click on now as background music for this post:
Reid is an artist, taxidermist, and accessories designer: real, gorgeous serious jewelry, and headpieces - even, as I discovered altho she's too modest to mention it, the 'rat headpiece' worn by Lady Gaga.
Stuffing rats for head gear is not all she does, of course. She's a conceptual artist, possessed of a beautiful mind, and she doesn't cause any deaths, but - this is an important part of her work, because she is strictly anti-meat eating - she only uses road kill, i.e., animals that are already dead. After writing yesterday about the ethics in clothing - and thank you to all who wrote those wonderful comments- I now turn to the controversy surrounding food. Opening THAT whole can o' worms.
Reid Peppard is one of those rare creatures: beautiful, smart, talented, massively funny, generous spirited, gentle, and kind. And - lucky me - Reid is also my friend.
Reid is wearing a vintage leather jacket with shoulder pads big and tough enough for a game of American touch tackle football. Check out Reid's Rats (RP/Encore), let me know what you think - and get well soon, Snot Bag Head.
This cold rainy spell we're having in England right now means that streetstyle wise, everything is dark and dull. I'm seeing a lot of black. But when I met my friend Gwyneth just before we left for Hay, I loved how by throwing a pure green jacket on over a pair of ripped jeans - and pairing it a pair of big 70s sunglasses (I left my nearly identical pair at our friends' Guill and Miche's house over the weekend), a great scarf, and Prada bag - the green just instantly makes it spring like.
I can't say what I'd like to about the colour green any better than what Roz wrote ('simple pleasures'). It's spot on, brilliant. The symbolic multi layered meanings - and the emotions behind - any given colour. Green with envy. Green as temptation. Going green. Being green. We've become almost holier than thou about caring about the planet (Mr. Dot and I were laughing the other day- we want to start going round saying F*** the Planet. What has the Planet ever done for us? Just announce to people we've just met 'I don't care about the Planet). So in that context, Green would mean Good.
There is also SOOOO much I could say about envy, especially envy amongst women. I was having such a great talk with my (beautiful) new chum Reid Peppard about that. I felt the world was probably divided, amongst the female population, between girls' girls, and the envious bitches. The bitches dominating about 60/40 split. She paused for a beat and said 'probably more like 70/30' but we decided that's because of the 10% who pose as girls girls: wolverines in sheeps' clothing.
I could see why people would envy Gwyneth: she's gorgeous, of course, and happy, and loves her boyfriend, and loves her work (she's done a bit of modelling) and basically loves her life, has great friends, etc etc. AND she's really nice, and smart. All of which makes me happy for her, and happy to be her friend. And I've got to run out this minute so I'll shut up now. Rain forecast for the weekend: great time to see a film. I recommend Last Night. Kiera Knightly, also of Atonement, and no doubt, an object of countless women's envy, which brings this post full circle.
RoadTrip23 is the natural evolution from StreetStyle London, which is still here, and has been since 2009. Because there's more to the world than fashion, and there's more to the world than London. Lovely as London is.
I'll still be posting street style, if something really grabs me, but have expanded into other areas of interest, primarily travel, the arts, culture. Whatever I feel is beautiful or interesting: either man made, or a natural wonder.
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