Turnbull & Asser

On Jermyn Street in London you can find the top of the line luxuries. Antiques, handmade shoes, a barbershop where you can get a classical shave and tailor made shirts from Turnbull & Asser. T&A has been around since 1885 and has clothed royalty, famous actors and successful businessmen. I can definitely see the appeal. Imagine the luxury of choosing fabric, pattern and details and get it made to fit you like a glove. What's not to like? The snatch is that it will cost you an arm and a leg. But then on the other hand you only live once ... or so they say.




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Dandy

A dandy. The expression first came about in the 18th century in Paris and london. In London it meant a middle class man who tried to present himself as an aristocrat by the way he dressed. In the late 18th century it was the dandy who set the tone in fashion. Most noted details in a dandy's wardrobe was the white tie and tails and the cylinder hat. A genuine dandy was characterized by ruthlessness, cold sarcasm, irony, good taste and elegance.

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde was considered the ultimate dandy. He used lots of decorations and ornaments in his dress as a dandy should. He was interested in the arts and was a seeker which also were noted characteristics of a dandy. Work was not for a dandy but I don't think that being a writer was considered as work at the time of Oscar Wilde.

Being a dandy is also considered as being a snob and the first known dnady was Beau Brummell who was a friend of king George the IV. Apparently the king could sit for hours watching Brummell get dressed to get a notion of where his elegance came from. Hmmm ....

The style of the dandy resurfaces in fashion now and then and I love it!

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Patrick Demarchelier

A picture says more than a thousand words. So true, and a beautiful picture is a work of art that you can lose yourself in, be happy about and create a sense of either excitement or peace. Patrick Demarchelier has the gift of taking beautiful pictures, as is evident from the ones I have selected here. He is one of the most famous photographers in fashion and has worked with everyone who is someone in that sphere of the world. Many are the people who would like to be photographed by this master of the craft.

And he has a very beautiful first name, don't you think?

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Glossy Magazines

I like glossy magazines. They are far from reality but I suppose that is part of the thrill. Glossies are about fantasies, about dreams and many of them unattainable to the largest portion of their readers. Why do we pour over magazines that tell us what to wear, what to buy, what to eat and how we should exercise? Because they give us an escape from our nine to five existence and promises us a world seen through pink coloured glasses. And they are filled with gaggles of beautiful people. What's not to like?? The glossies are also a valuable source of inspiration, especially if you are in a creative profession. When I went to fashion college we poured over them. There was a market not very far from Liverpool Street where we could buy older publications. I loved to go to Selfridges and see rows and rows of magazines. Harper's Bazaar, Arena, GQ, W, Vouge to just mention a few and I had a huge pile at the end of my bed. Each and every one gave me a lot.

One of my nick names in college was GQ-man, because they thought I looked like I had fallen right of a page of that particular publication.

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Shoppinng Solo or not

Shopping can be done solo or with company. I actually like shopping on my own. I can go where I like and it can be as quick as I like or I can linger as long as I wish. Of course it is most fun shopping with a friend. You can have a serious chin wag while you are exploring the goods in the shops and you can sit down somewhere and have a nice cup of coffee preferably with something chocolaty. Anna is the best of company when shopping because when I try something on and contemplate on if it's worth wasting the money she says; "Buy it!"

Can't get any better than that.

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Roberto Cavalli

Roberto Cavalli. Just hearing and seeing the name makes me think of all things hot and sexy. He has completely succeeded in infusing a touch of sexiness in his clothes and even more so in his advertising. You can see an example here above and that is where it all starts. In good advertising the seeds of desire are planted, creating a thirst and hunger that needs to be quenched one way or another. If people don't know that you exist and you can't create a tantalizing story then you are more or less lost. Almost everyone knows who Roberto Cavalli is and that says it all.

Roberto Cavalli was born in Florence, Italy, in 1940. In the 1970s he invented a new technique for printing on leather and started making patchworks of different materials. In the beginning he got work from Hermes and Pierre Cardin before starting up his own brand. Today the brand consists of menswear, womenswear, perfumes, eyewear etc, etc.


The Roberto Cavalli fall men's collection for 2011 can make me salivate. Beautiful materials, great tailoring and as ever that touch of sexiness. Matters are not made worse by the influence of a 1970s playboy that is clearly suggested in the image. To die for!! Now I just have to decide if I want to be dressed from top to toe in Cavalli this autumn or ... eat.


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Omega

I have always loved watches from Omega. My parents bought one each in the 1970s. When I was in high school I got the square one to use as my own. In the end it was a very well travelled watch. I broke the wrist band when I got caught in the door on my way out of Waitrose on Kings Road. Then a another mishap happened and I gave the watch to relative who is a clock maker to mend it. That was over ten years ago and I haven't got the watch back yet. I found this watch on ebay that looks practically the same as the one that was mine. For aproximately £100 it can end up on my wrist.


Either that, or I threaten my relative with a fate worse than death ...


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Something Blue

I felt that I had to do something opposite to the orange history I donned earlier today. I chose the colour blue which has been my favourite for as long as I can remember. A shirt from Zara and a cardigan from Pringle did the trick. I took out the camera because I got an urge for posing.

An homage to my number one fan of poses. Tony.

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Shoes from Zara

On one of my endless shopping sprees I found these shoes from Zara. Very nice!!

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Stylish in Orange??

I can make anything look stylish .... not. I was working hard this morning on my father's estate in an overall that makes US convicts' orange spring to mind. I guess the reason is that you are supposed to be easy to spot no matter if you are working with lumber or rattling the bars of a cage. Well, it matches the colour of the beard at least. The overall is my father's and his upper body is slightly shorter than mine so the thing pulled at my groin.

If I want some crotch action it is of an entirely different kind ...

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Burberry - Explorer Canvas Bag, and a Fleeting Life

I was sitting there surfing the web while taking care of a student who did a re-exam in business. I found this bag from Burberry that cost "just" £650.

I asked my student if he was tired and he said that last monday he had got the information that he has a hereditary heart disease. This means that his heart can race at any moment and eventually stop. He needs a pace maker, has to take it easy and of course this weighs on his mind.

This puts luxury goods and a lot of other things into perspective. Not that we should stop shopping. If you can afford a bag like this and want it, and it makes you happy, buy it.

Life is fleeting. Too fleeting to not say "I love you" if that is what you want to do. Too fleeting to deny that you have feelings and to deny who you are. If you suppress that you feel and turn yourself into something that you not really are, you commit the biggest of crimes.

You betray yourself.

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Hanky

This a hankerchief that I want from Brothers but it won't get into the shops until March and my patience is next to non existent. :-S

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News from H&M

I found this shirt on H&M's webpage under news and it is a steal for £10. You can also buy it in white but that is a colour that I can't carry off very well, so this colour aboves is better for me.

Trousers I actually do need, believe it or not, and these grey blue chinos are a bargain at about 20£.

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Matilda of England

I take a leap back in history today and land some hundred years back in the family tree. I needed a boost today and reading about fascinating ancestors does it for me. Matilda was born in 1156 and was the daughter of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine. If I say that she was the older sister of Richard the Lionheart I think you can pinpoint her more easily in history.

Matilda left England in 1167 to marry Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, (at the age of eleven!!!). They had four sons and one daughter. The most noted of them is Otto who became Holy Roman Emperor. I can't remember which of the children is "mine" so to speak. I have to check.

Matilda's husband, Henry the Lion, was a close ally to Fredrik I, Holy Roman Emperor, and assisted the Emperor in his wars in the holy land from 1172 to 1173. In her husband's absence Matilda governed the realm and quite successfully. Loyalities and trust are fleeting and in 1174 Henry was in conflict with the Emperor and Matilda and Henry had to flee to her father's court. They were allowed back to Saxony in 1185. In 1189 Henry was yet again ordered into exile. Matilda stayed at Brunswick to defend her husband's interests but she died three months later.

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Ingrid Bergman

I have always been fascinated by the fact that Sweden, this small country up in the north, has contributed to two of Hollywood's biggest stars ever, Greta Garbo and Ingrid bergman. A nice fact that can make you proud being Swedish.

Ingrid Bergman was born in 1915 and at 17 she started at the Royal Dramatic Theatre School. She was sought after by the Swedish film industry and quit the school after only one year. Ingrid Bergman starred in the Swedish film Intermezzo in 1936 which created international interest and led her to go to Hollywood to make an American version of the film.

With little experience in the English language she signed a seven year contract with producer David O. Selznick. He wanted to change her looks and her name. She refused.

In 1942 Ingrid Bergman starred against Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, which is considered as one of the best films in history and made her into a legend in her own lifetime. She worked with great directors like Alfred Hitchcock and George Cukor and starred against leading men like Cary grant, Gregory Peck, Spencer Tracy and Gary Copper.

In 1950 she went to Italy to make a film with Roberto Rosselini. They fell in love and Ingrid left her first husband creating a huge scandal in America. After separating from Rosselini in 1956 she was let back to Hollywood, forgiven by her fans and received her second academy award for her performance in Anastasia. She then picked up where she left off and continued her triumphant journey in Hollywood. Ingrid Bergman died in 1982 on 67th birthday in her home in London.


She won three Academy Awards, two Emmys and one Tony. She has been rated as the fourth most important film actress of all time by the American Film Institute. She was eceptionally beautiful and has and still has an important influence on style and fashion.

My favourite of her films is Notorious.

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Lanvin Fall 2011

The fashion house Lanvin was created by Jeanne Marie Lanvin in the beginning of the past century. The height of her career was in the 1920s and 1930s, where she also launched perfumes that are still around today. When Jeanne Lanvin died in 1946 the company was then run by her daughter, Marguerite di Pietro.

In 2001 Alber Elbaz became Lanvin's art director and in 2005 Lucas Ossendrijver started as the head designer for menswear. The style is far cry from that that Jeanne Lanvin created in the 1920s but they have maintained the brand well and still today it stands for luxuary and quality.

When it comes to the fall collection I think they have done a better job with the women's collection than the men's. I see a freshness in the women's clothes and they feel new and trendy. I know that there are more limits to what be done with men's clothes so therefore the designers are far more restricted but I still lack a bit of innovation. The grey coat above is very nice but I have seen before time and time again. It is not enough that the buttons are hidden to make it a hot, new thing.

As an ending I would like to show this picture from Lanvin's advertising for the fall collections 2010 which I think is really cool.

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Rifat Ozbek

Here you see the man who is partly responsible for me going to London to study fashion, Rifat Ozbek. He was born in Turkey in the 1950s and moved to London to study architecture but ended up doing fashion instead and graduated from Central st Martins in 1976. He started his own business and has been going strong ever since.

He has a style that is western but with lots of exotic and ethnic influences which I have always liked. In the picture above we see Kate Moss in the beginning of her career and that was the fashion Rifat Ozbek presented when I was in London and it was gorgeous.

When I went to Sixth Form College in Sweden I wanted to go out in the world and learn about design. I wanted to be in Paris, because Paris is fashion! But I didn't speak French. That didn't stop me from sending a letter to Jean-Paul Gaultier. He actually answered. A big thing when you are eighteen.

Then I set my sights on London and I thought it would be cool to work for Rifat Ozbek. He advised me to apply to London College of Fashion, which I did. That is why Rifat Ozbek is partly the reason why I ended up in London and I am eternally grateful to him because what an adventure I experienced.

One day in London I actually ran into him in the street, stopped him (naturally), introduced myself ... nearly jumped his bones ...

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Individual Style

When I saw this guy I had to take a picture. It has been seen before but he definitely makes a personal statement. I think it is really cool with people who dares to stand out and don't conform to the masses. What would our world be like without those who have the guts to go against the stream? A much more boring place I would wager. I suppose he washes his hair every day because I can't imagine that he goes to bed like that ... but who knows??

Individual style is imperative and only dead fish follow the stream.

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Dance your Arse off

Sometimes you have to let your hair down and let all seriousness fly with the wind. One of the best places to do that is on the dance floor. If nothing else it is the perfect excuse to dress up or dress differently from what you usually do. Put on something that will catch everyone elses atention, something that will boost your confidence and make you a star. You know you can do it. Immerse yourself in the music, let yourself be seduced by the beat and simply dance your arse off!!

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CK

Calvin Klein like many other designers slaps his name on a variety of products. Such a venture is like a double edged sword. It can lift the brand to newer heights or make it fall down to the pits of hell. In the case of Calvin Klein I think we stand in front of a win-win situation. The watches and jewellery is completely in line with his fashion which is symbolized by clean, minimalistic designs.

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Xtreme Couture

Xtreme Couture is a collaboration between wrestler Randy "The Natural" Couture and Affliction. The style of the products are basically the same between the two brands but since I'm a sucker for skulls I fall for both of them.

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Stayhard

It becomes more and more common with online shopping sites concerning clothes. For better and for worse. It is naturally very easy to sit at home by your computer or where ever you happen to be and buy stuff. Downsides are that you can't try them on and you also lose some of the shopping experience which a lot of people value.

One of these sites that I'm not so familiar with is Stayhard. They also have a few regular shops and today I went into the one in Gothenburg and liked what I saw. There were many items that I would like to purchase. Too many. A few minutes ago I went into their website and I thought that the site was also nice and easy to handle. One thing that the site can't give me is the sales person that I met this afternoon and she was really nice.

Most of the times the staff can either make or break a shopping experience, but they are to prefer before the impersonal service of an Internet site.

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