variations in black and white

My friend Maryann, who lives with her husband in Tranquility, NJ, which is as rural and tranquil a place as you'd find under two hours from NYC, once remarked that cows freaked her out a bit. 'They don't look natural', she said. She meant, their black and white starkness. You don't usually see that in nature, apart from the dead of winter, after a freshly fallen snow.

My friend Lisa, the Original Dot, in NY, once famously said that 'nothing in life is that black and white, there are always shades of grey'. I guess that's what I love so much about the crispness of black and white, in fashion: it's so clean, so simple. I'm going thru a black and white phase: often completing the trilogy with some nice camel or tan. They showed the Danish restaurant Noma on Celebrity Masterchef last night, and that's EXACTLY what I'm loving right now: minimal, stark, but with natural tones and textures.

From top: David Koma's show last September, Laura at Mark Fast, Miggy, the window @ Zanotti on Walton Street, back round to Koma again. Photos all by yours truly.

pandemonium ensued

First off: I didn't take these photos. I was not there.

Hang on, I should back up to where the story started, in 1988.

At the age of 14, a girl from Croydon named Kate Moss was discovered at JFK airport by Sarah Doukas, head of Storm, the model agency. Two years later, the brilliant photographer, late Corinne Day, who tragically died last year, took the most beautiful photos of her, and a star was born.

How random is this: when I started doing street style photography, started my blog, the spring before last, I spotted and dotted a cute, petite blonde in Primrose Hill, and I never do this, but I asked what she did for work. She said she did PR for Topshop. I laughed. While I have in general - as most of us bloggers do - a kind of love/hate relationship with the idea of PR, Liz is just so gosh darn nice, and usually I'll go to an event and have a great time & take pictures and hey, why not. I only 'promote' what I like. I don't get paid, I don't even get free stuff. But the beauty, for me, is it is my blog and I can say whatever I like.



Tonight, she had invited me to Oxford Street to see Kate Moss launch her last collection for Topshop, but I stayed home with the cat and Mr. Dot, to watch the 2nd to last night of Professional Masterchef. And I never do this - I really tear into PR people who send me shots by other photographers of parties I didn't attend - but there was something kind of 'hot off the press' about these shots Liz just sent me, by a photographer I don't know, of a woman I don't know either.

To quote the press release: "Pandemonium ensued as the queue for those waiting to catch a glimpse of Kate and shop the collection snaked all the way around the store. At 7.00pm Kate arrived with Sir Philip and Chloe Green, posing for the cameras and the customers, and the barriers were lifted to allow a shopping frenzy to commence. Customers were buying armfuls of pieces.. Kate wore a one-off jumpsuit in black lurex with art deco tulip detailing on the neckline, custom made by Topshop. One lucky Kate fan will have the chance to win the outfit (go to the Topshop blog to enter)..."

Of the ten shots I received, I chose these two: when shooting in this kind of madness, it's impossible to control the background, but I like these compositions. Although Kate chose only two photographers to shoot her, clearly that restriction was out of control as well: EVERYONE was playing photographer tonight.

Ah, the crazy cult of celebrity. Because, after all, when all is said and done, Kate Moss really is just a normal, nice girl from Croydon with an innate, natural, uncanny sense of her own style. That said, I do think this is the best I've seen her in a long time: pale blonde hair, long fringe, red lips. Glamour with a capital G.

And so, Miss Moss and Sir Green are thus parted, on the friendliest of terms. And everyone lives happily ever after.

ooh la la

Was crossing the road, actually, when a random thought hit me. In school, learning French (okay, not learning it: I've had a few cute French boyfriends since then, back in NY days, and was kicking myself I didn't try harder), I remember being told 'everything is either masculine, or feminine'.

When I get dressed, even to throw something on to run out for a coffee, there's always this instinctive genderisation thing going on in my head: I'll put on le leather jacket, la pink watch, le brogues, hmm.. needs perhaps a la la blouse.. for me it's no different than cooking: each dish has its own unique ratio of spicy to bland, salty to sweet, crispy to soft. Endless possibilities.

My personal theory of why everyone went mental for Christopher Bailey's Aviator jacket last season wasn't the jacket: it was pairing it over those gorgeous dresses. Which is what we've been seeing on the street from Day One.



Have you noticed that when we say 'androgynous' in fashion we really mean totally le male?

Of course, men have been dressing all girly periodically in history: la dandy, par example, or the whole New Romantics thing in the 80s.. and let's not forget cross dressers.

I don't think I've dressed totally feminine in my life: I always lean towards the lean, the spare, the simple, the male. With a few female twists. Take Stephanie, of Style Odyssey, for example ('maximum impact'): she can pull off le masculine because, in reality, she's so feminine. And those red lips! Ooh la la!