Fashion Fades, Love is Eternal.

Boom.  This trailer has just blown me away and I knew I must share immediately.

L'Amour Fou

Cannes Can

Bardot running along the beach at Cannes...Can I emulate this look whilst not falling over?

Lovely readers, I must apologise for my lax posting of late. A wonderful trip to Berlin for the Boy's birthday, followed by a rather nasty chest infection has made me lazy. Berlin was incredible, we stayed in Soho House, bicycled around the city exploring East and West and met up with some chums who I hadn't seen for ages.  I came back to Spring FINALLY being here...and me being nearly bed-ridden and knackered! However I have recovered form and am starting to think about my Summer style. 

People in London are already floating about in maxi dresses and flip flops and whilst I think this is a tad too far, there's no harm putting together a little fantasy collection of purchases that would be suitable for Riviera chic..what with Cannes being around the corner and visit to a pal in St Tropz on the cards.  When it comes to Spring / Summer, simple is best and I have to say the French have it nailed.  My style is a variation on my fantasy collection. Lots of stripes, simple t shirt or prom dresses, a whacking great pair of sunglasses and French Sole ballet pumps. I also try and switch my colour palette largely based around black in Autumn/ Winter to one of white.  This year I may even invest in LWD..Little White Dress of course, keep up!
What are your Summer staples?x

From left to right: Rag & Bone wide brimmed beach hat, £120 @ lagarconne.com, Repetto ballet pumps, £150; Elizabeth and James jersey bustier dress, £108 @ Net-a-porter; Ruffian A-line cotton skirt, £525 @ brownsfashion.com; D&G sunglasses, £235.

Brig again looking very French and pouty in Repetto flats, a Breton top and capri pants.  Top tip, accessorize with a vintage car for maximum glamour.

Kara's Tree, Trainer Girl

Sometimes you have love at first sight. It's rare, like a kick in the gut and you HAVE to have the object of your desire. When THREE such lightening bolts hit you, there really is no hope.  Liberty prints, Quentin Blake and a pair of new shoes for encroaching Spring.  The result being these bad boys..

The gorgeous Kara's Trees Print Blazer Mid Dunks, from the Nike Liberty 2011 Collection. There has been heaps of blogger buzz about them for ages and they were finally launched on Friday.


Quite a few of the shoes' fabrics were themed wonderfully around childrens' books illustrations, whereby illustrators such as Quentin Blake and David McKee were asked to draw something for the Liberty design team to then interpret and be inspired by to come up with fabrics.  They then rendered the original drawings with the resulting fabrics to form a lookbook that is used to sell in the 'concept' of the collection.  I have to admit that this was a surprise to me as I had just assumed that Liberty prints were mainly archive revivals. 

The design team all draw original designs, decide on colour palettes and seem to work independently, only for it to all come together as a collection under the umbrella theme.  The starting point for the S/S 11 collection was David McKee's Mr Benn books and resulting TV show.

My absolute favourite illustrator, Mr Quentin Blake  also kindly gave a drawing to the team and after it had been 'Libertified', he wrote this in reaction... "I've always wanted a pair of socks like that..." Big thanks to Susie Bubble for these "behind the scene" pictures!

The Quentin Blake drawing, also inspired a pattern called 'Kara's Tree' which delicately speckles the trainers with a subtle pointillist leaf pattern that for me, makes them the most unisex pair in the collection... if you look closely, there's supposed to be depictions of fence and pebbles along with trees and I took great delight in finding this on my new trainers.

There are of course other designs and I would recommend checking them all out  before they've all vanished or appear on Ebay for ludicrously inflated sums. In the meantime, I'm happily skipping down the street in my new shoes.  Happy Monday everyone!x