Object of desire - the black trouser (suit)

Yves Saint Laurent has a lot to answer for in my book.  Ever since he launched 'Le Smoking' - the bold, sophisticated tuxedo for women - way back in 1966 (a vintage year though I say it myself), the perfect black trouser (suit) has been out there, and yet it remains incredibly elusive. Which got me wondering why should such a classic item be so hard for us mere mortals to pin down?

Photo: Helmut Newton

Back in the 90's when I was living my London life, a pair of black trousers from Joseph on the Fulham Road were the nec plus ultra of office attire. Squeezing yourself into a pair of the signature low-cut, narrow-leg pants however was another matter entirely, and I didn't seem to be the right shape back then to be a Joseph girl,  regardless of whether I could afford them.... But oh, did they represent a level of chic and modernity that we all aspired to - I was not going to give up my quest.

Joseph AW13

I knew that designer definitely beat high street as regards the tailored trouser, and after some more sleuthing finally found a pair from Anna Sui in The Harvey Nicks sale: flat fronted, boot cut and beautifully made, they fitted the bill and went with everything. I hauled them out of mothballs the other day and tried them on. How fickle the fashion years are - where once they looked so right, now they just seemed frumpy and unflattering - a classic item maybe, but as the years have passed, seemingly not classic enough.

Le Smoking 1966

Yet the black trouser, with or without its jacket, remains a perennial favourite on the catwalk, and both Raf Simons at Dior and Hedi Slimane at Saint Laurent (he's dropped the Yves) have reinvented it for the 21st Century in a way that just makes me lust after a pair all over again. Simons has combined them with the Dior Bar jacket for his tux redux, whilst Slimane has produced them in both wool and buttersoft leather that I am coveting (in my dreams). Further down the rock chick scale Isabel Marant has her own boho version but it is the classic slimcut wool version that will stand the test of time.

Raf Simons for Dior Haute Couture A/W 2012

Dior Ready to Wear S/S 2013

Hedi Slimane for Saint Laurent S/S 2013

Pre Fall 2013 Saint Laurent

Isabel Marant in her own design for S/S 2014

If the French fashion houses are where to find the perfect pair, then it is to les Françaises we need to look for the best way to wear them. From Catherine Deneuve to Inès de la Fressange, from Charlotte Rampling (I know she's English but she is peerless in her French dress sense) to Emanuelle Alt they all wear a black trouser or full tux with consummate ease, dressing it up or down with that Gallic insouciance that I find so seductive (and know that I will never master). As Deneuve herself once commented: “The thing about a tuxedo is that it is virile and feminine at the same time.” In other words - gentlemen, watch out.

Catherine Deneuve with Yves Saint Laurent in the original 'Le Smoking'

Ines de la Fressange - Paris Fashion Week S/S 2014

Charlotte Rampling - Photo: girlsinsuits.tumblr.com

Emanuelle Alt Paris Fashion Week S/S 2014

Of course the high street has come a long way in the past 20 years and there are now a myriad lower price point versions of the black trouser (suit) to choose from. I keep trying the odd pair on, in the vain hope that they might do the trick, yet they remain unable to deliver on their promise, so back on the rail they go and my quest continues. Couture truly is a cut above in this instance and Yves Saint Laurent's Le Smoking remains as alluring today as it first did 47 years ago, offering a glamour and sophistication that the high street just can't match. To quote the great man himself “For a woman, Le Smoking is an indispensable garment with which she finds herself continually in fashion, because it is about style, not fashion. Fashions come and go, but style is forever.” Never a truer word said.

Vive l'amour!

My Scottish adventure this weekend was a triumph of love over heartache, longing and defying the romantic odds, and I for one am still punching the air with the joy of it all. One of our dearest friends has finally found the girl of his dreams and we were there to celebrate with them and to affirm the long held belief that your soulmate does exist and is out there, waiting for you, if you just know where to look and can hang on long enough to find them.

Photo: Pinterest

 
Call me a romantic - I was a teenager in the 80's - but hey, who didn't want their best friend to shout "Way to go Paula!" as the Richard Gere of their dreams burst through the factory door and carried them off for a life of everlasting travel love? Whilst I didn't particularly want to marry myself an 'avia-tor', I firmly believed in 'the one' and spent a hell of a long time looking for him, and he finally showed up, in my fourth year at university, unassuming but gorgeous, funny and quirky (the first time I met him properly he had a folded sock in his jacket pocket having been unable to find a clean handkerchief - that sock has a lot to answer for...) and for some inexplicable reason he was interested in me. We made it as a couple beyond graduation and down to London, and the rest as they say, is history.

Photo: Rex Features

Now, after many years together and with the pitter patter of tiny feet an often deafening noise as their feet grow ever larger, it is easy to forget that first flush of love when we realized that our life had taken on new meaning, we were no longer on our own and we had indeed made it in the happiness stakes.  The minutiae of everyday life takes over whether we like it or not - we are now undeniably grown up - the 'sandwich generation' with young children and elderly parents to look after and we are having to juggle more with every passing year. True love and how it once felt gets to take a back seat, which is a sorry indictment of our priorities and how much time we have to ourselves these days - it's been a long time since we had a slow dance in the kitchen.

Photo: Pinterest

Whilst everyone has their own way of dealing with this - be it date nights, weekends away, anniversary surprises, post-it notes that say 'I love you' or just an unexpected kiss 'hello' or 'goodbye', it is good to be reminded that we were once so giddy with love we could hardly breathe and we didn't know how we would survive until we saw each other again.

Seeing someone you are close to finally find 'the one', and remembering that when it comes down to it, this is what truly matters, is a life and love affirming emotion that has made me stop and take stock of what English Gent and I have and what we are still capable of, so long as we make time for ourselves and remember where it all began and why.  To slightly misquote my other favourite 80's movie: nothing and 'nobody puts Baby (and Johnny) in a corner' and if we just stop and think about it, we are still dancing in the kitchen and having the time of our lives. 

Take me to the Beach

One of my first childhood memories is of being bent double, looking for shells on a windswept Scottish beach. I am about 5, we are traveling around the northernmost tip of the British Isles in a VW Camper van and I am happy as a (razor)clam. Brightly coloured sea glass, ebony mermaids' purses, periwinkles and wave tumbled pebbles all make their way into my pockets as the pull of the sea makes its way into my heart.

My sister and me on the beach, Cornwall 1968

Fast forward 40 or so years and my feelings haven't changed. Put me on a beach, whatever the weather and I am home. The wind in my hair, the taste of salt in my mouth, breathing in the ozone in big, hungry gulps - I definitely have the beach gene. My mother and sister share this love of the ocean and my boys are showing all the signs which makes me very happy - it's a family thing.

Le Crotoy, Baie de Somme

Sunset at Aberbach, Pembrokeshire

 
Our house is full of shells and other beach combing treasures from holidays past and I never lose the thrill of wondering what I might find on the next trip. Heart shaped pebbles bring good luck, and rare baby pink cowries (which were used as currency in days gone by) are said to be symbols of fertility. I remember finding some on the beautifully wild Scarista beach in the Outer Hebrides when we were thinking of starting a family and wishing on them with all my might. Looking back, I like to think they worked their magic.

Sea glass from Deia, Mallorca

English Gent knows and understands that the sea is part of who I am and that like a plant without water and light, I start to fade if I don't get my regular fix. So it's in the marriage contract that he takes me to the coast at least once a year (the quid pro quo is that he gets to go and play golf for a week, though I'm not sure the restorative quality is quite the same) and this Summer particularly, with all the intense sadness and emotions that we have experienced recently, being on the beach never seemed more important.

Clayeux-sur-Mer, Baie de Somme

The Baie de Somme in Picardy; Whitesands, Newport, Abermawr, Aberbach and Freshwater West in Pembrokeshire all played their part in healing and knitting us together tightly as a family. Whether swimming, playing beach cricket, building sand castles and forts, cloud watching, shell seeking, rock pooling, skimming stones, wave jumping or eating lobster rolls and Mr Whippy icecreams - beach life in all its comfort and simplicity really was just what the doctor ordered.

Cafe Mor, Freshwater West, Pembrokeshire

Freshwater West, Pembrokeshire

Freshwater West, Pembrokeshire

Freshwater West, Pembrokeshire

Mr. Whippy heaven

Now as the season of "mists and mellow fruitfulness" is upon us, we have one more seaside adventure to come up in Scotland this weekend, so we shall wrap up warmly, breathe in deeply, and make the most of the wild, raw beauty of the ocean, before shoring up the memories like layers of sand and dreaming of more to come.

Making our mark....however fleeting...

Style Muse - Stella Tennant

I know I've posted on my style crushes before - Stella McCartney and Jenna Lyons being two of them, but I'm keen to introduce a few new regular features to the blog, so I'm kicking off with 'Style Muse', and as London Fashion Week S/S '14 is in full swing, it seems only fitting that my first 'muse' is the very down to earth and beautiful Brit model and mother, Stella Tennant.

Vogue UK July 2013 - Photo: Bay Garnett

I have been an admirer of Tennant's style since way back in December 1993 when Steven Meisel shot a now legendary photoshoot for UK Vogue entitled "Anglo-Saxon Attitude." Featuring 'real' people chosen by the late, great stylist Isabella Blow, I remember being blown away by Tennant in all her grungy aristo-punk, nose-ringed glory. 

Vogue UK December 1993 - Photo: Steven Meisel

Vogue UK December 1993 - Photo: Steven Meisel

Vogue UK December 1993 - Photo: Steven Meisel

She was everything I wasn't (and 20 years later still is) - different, edgy, simultaneously feminine and androgynous and I loved the whiff of street style anarchy mixed with upper class elegance, which over time has become something of a Stella trademark. Tennant is after all the granddaughter of the Duchess of Devonshire, (the beautiful and stylish chatelaine of Chatsworth house and a Mitford sister to boot), which all adds up to a heady mix of 'Downton' and down town (if you'll pardon the pun).

Vogue UK - Photo: Mario Testino

The Duchess wrote very entertainingly about the above shoot as follows:

"Darling Paddy,
Stella came. We had to be together in a photo for Vogue's 90th birthday come Christmas. So one Mario Testino, famous photographer, came in a helicopter with a crew of makeup, hairdresser, “fashion editor”, etc from London.
I've got a really beautiful dress, grand evening, given me by Oscar de la Renta, so that was my kit. They bound Stella's legs, up to where they join her body, in tartan. A Union Jack flag hung from her waist & her top was what my father would have called meaningless.
Hair skewbald/piebald, all colours & stuck up in bits. THEN they produced “shoes” with 6 inch heels. More stilts - she could hardly put one foot in front of the other, wobbling & toppling.
We looked just like that Grandville drawing of a giraffe dancing with a little monkey. I was the monkey.
Much love
Debo
(Letter from In Tearing Haste: Letters Between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor)

A Mitford grandaughter through and through.

Vogue UK November 2005 - Photo: Tim Walker

After all these years, and despite taking time off to concentrate on her children,  at 43 Tennant is still hugely in demand as a model. In this youth-obsessed era that we live in, here is a woman who combines both her family (she is a mum of 4) and fashion lives with grace and ease,  and whose attitude to ageing is to totally disregard it, which I love. As hot new designer Joseph Altuzurra commented when casting Tennant in his first full-page ad for this year's US Vogue September issue:  “She’s really an Altuzarra woman because she has a life and four kids—she is who she is on her own terms. She lives in Scotland and is incredibly successful and there is a confident, unapologetic side to her. I didn’t want a 20-year-old model, I wanted someone who is our woman. Clothes are part of her life but not her entire life.”

A/W 2013 Altazurra - Photo Inez & Vinoodh

'On her own terms' sums Tennant up perfectly - she embodies that subtle sense of British eccentricity and 'I don't give a damn' attitude that I find so inspiring. To me she is the consummate fashion chameleon - no-one does punk or aristo-elegance like she does and regardless of who she is working with - Lagerfeld, Testino, Bruce Weber et al, she remains true to herself - one classy lady.

Valentino Haute Couture for the WSJ - Photo: Daniel Jackson

Vogue UK September 2012 - Photo: Mario Testino

Vogue UK September 2011 - Photo: Javier Vallhonrat

Vogue US September 2010 - Photo: David Sims

Her latest Vogue shoot in July of this year was photographed and styled by her good friend Bay Garnett and offers us a snapshot of her family life in Scotland. Her comment about her children's bedrooms made me laugh - I'm afraid I'm somewhat the same about what goes up on the walls of my boys room...  She's as much at home yomping in a field as she is on the catwalk, plus her love of  Scotland and the sea and her attitude to life in general only make me like her more. Yup, I've got a proper girl crush going on.

Vogue UK July 2013 - Photo: Bay Garnett

Vogue UK July 2013 - Photo: Bay Garnett

Vogue UK July 2013 - Photo: Bay Garnett

Vogue UK July 2013 - Photo: Bay Garnett

Vogue UK July 2013 - Photo: Bay Garnett

You can keep your Caras and your Kates, as all eyes are on Britain's fashion exploits this week, there's only one girl for me - for your brains, beauty, mothering style and knock 'em dead attitude Stella - you're a star.

Rites of Passage

Summer's over, it's back to school and back to my blog, however before I get back to posting about daily life, style, fashion and the like, I need a moment of introspection.  Sitting here at my desk, with the late Summer sun pouring in through my window I'm reflecting on all that has happened over the past two months. You may well ask where have I been all this time and why the silence?  Well it's been a funny old Summer really, life has thrown itself at me in ways I couldn't possibly have imagined and I have lived to tell the tale, the same person yet fundamentally changed.

Photo: Pinterest

You see, my beloved Dad died suddenly during the first week of the Summer holidays and the axis of my existence has shifted irrevocably. Nothing can prepare you for the gaping hole of grief that threatens to swallow you whole, turn blue skies grey, laughter to tears and hope to despair.  It feels as if you will never emerge back into the blinking light of normality and yet you have to, and everyday life pulls you back into the moment and you carry on, somehow.

My Dad was a warm, generous family man and in his heyday a true bon viveur and the life and soul of any party. I have one beautiful older sister, and if he ever wanted boys, he never let on - we were his girls and he loved us fiercely, expecting the best from us and wanting the best for us. He taught me a myriad things: how to ski, how to mix the perfect G&T,  how to stand up for myself, how to expect high standards in life, how to love. Long before Wikipedia there was my Dad - he knew everything about anything, even the most obscure facts and his thirst for knowledge was infectious - there are still some really weird things that I find myself knowing, all thanks to him.

My parents would have been married for 52 years today and the poignancy of today's date brings the memories flooding back as they have been all Summer.  When a person is still with us but nearing the end of their life, you tend to only concentrate on the here and now, the difficulties, the problems, the rigours of old age, the sadness and pain of ill health. Yet now I find myself on the other side of this inevitable rite of passage, the stories, scenes and souvenirs of my past are vibrantly replayed, as if I am watching my early life on Super 8 - the picture is a bit distorted, the sound isn't always clear, but the images still burn bright and remind me that all these pieces of the puzzle are what makes me who I am today.

My father had the most wonderful hands - strong, square, warm, firm hands that could soothe away all ills with one stroke on the forehead, and I find myself doing the same for my two boys. Walking hand in hand he would give mine a squeeze and I would squeeze back, a little thing I have taught both my boys to do, and so the family traditions continue. What I wouldn't give to hold those hands again, but in my heart I do. The writer John Niven wrote a very moving article recently about losing a family member that closes with the Philip Larkin quote "What will survive of us is love." I couldn't have put it better myself, except perhaps to quote Dad who would have said "If life gives you lemons, make gin and tonic." Cheers, my wonderful Da.