My Own Private India

'People have been drawn to India for centuries for reasons that still excite travellers today; for legacy, for colour, for the opportunity to stand before something that is bigger than yourself.  When EM Forster wrote that India is “not a promise, only an appeal,” he summed up something that Hunt herself acknowledges implicitly. “Be brave,” she says, “but be careful.” The beauty is in exploration but also in reserve. Fresh from her latest trip to the country, Hunt spoke to us about India’s siren-song appeal and its particular relationship with Jac+ Jack.' 

I interviewed Jac + Jack designer Jac Hunt about her own private India for Brace magazine. You can read the whole article here. One of my oldest friends is in India now, having the time of her life. I want to go, I want to go, I want to go. 

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dancing in the moonlight

Is this what all weddings ought to be like? Bathed in the dusky glow of northern beaches summer, tinged with a rich, heady red-wine wash, tasting like the best days at bread & circus (which is to say, every day), played out against the strains of gentle waves lapping the sand? So good, so right, so perfect, that the bride - the beautiful, beautiful bride, in her beautiful, beautiful dress - couldn't help but jump out of her seat to spread her arms wide and smile a silky, ecstatic smile and sing at the top of her voice when the talented band strung up this song. Such a fine and natural sight. As far as evenings go, it's going to be pretty hard to top this one.

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well read

Out-takes by Rachel Kara for Brace . See the full article here.

Working with RKB is always a dream. There's an instinctiveness to the way she shoots that makes her the ultimate partner in crime; who would you rather have driving the getaway car? The person who asks you if it's time to go or the one who's had the engine running since you ran into the bank? This piece we shot for Brace Digital with Brenda, the creative director behind my favourite Australian label Benah, was my favourite kind of work. Friends coming together, talking about nothing but books, bottomless pots of tea and wishing hopelessly for cake. I feel like I always say this when Rachel is involved, but if only it could always be this good.

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saturdays are for love

Who would have thought that we could have pulled it together, after cancellation after cancellation, and all of it a SURPRISE? Only for you, RKB. A kitchen tea for the ladies, at our favourite place, with our favourite people, just before you get a(nother) ring put on you. Who would have thought we could have done it - betterthanchiswick lamb, nigel's mistress chicken, a coconut dream cake, and pavlova with all the trimmings, just the way it should be - and all with maximal minimal stress. We pull out the stops when we do it for love. Afternoons like this are the ones that make the working week worthwhile, the ones that you get up every morning at 6.45 for. They're the ones that never end, even when the rain starts to drizzle down mere metres away and the staff start to get out the mops and clean up around you. Lucky we have friends in high places that let us linger, eh? If only it could always be just like this.

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in the kitchen

freunde von freunden

The first time I went to the Nordic Bakery I didn't care about cinnamon buns or prawn sandwiches or elderflower tea. I was meeting Stevie for the first time and was so excited and so cold and (so) late. Happily, so was she, and we spent a couple of hours chatting about nothing and keeping warm. I remember Stevie tried to get a sneaky picture of the girls in their aprons (and cos she loves a good pinnie) because they were just that cool. Seeing these pictures of chef Soli Zardosht in London brings it all back. This is how all aprons ought to look if they possibly can. Thick straps, low armholes, big pockets, and a slip-into-it pinafore quality. I'm a messy cook - aren't we all? - and I need an apron. I need an apron to keep a tea towel in, to protect my clothes, to wipe my hands on when they're sticky with the residue of peach juice or tomatoes or olive oil, to leave on when you have to dash down the road to buy more golden syrup, to let the straps slip comfortably off your shoulder. But I want an apron because they're just that cool.

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cinematic style - goin' to the chapel in various

Rachel McAdams in About Time // Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama // Andie Macdowell in Four Weddings and a Funeral // Keira Knightley in Love Actually // Amanda Seyfried in Mamma Mia

Soon a few friends will be goin to the chapel, cos they're gonna get married. Excited doesn't even begin to cover it. All good things in life end in weddings. Also, three richard curtis movies? It must be time to watch Notting Hill again...

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kinfolk

Olivia Rae James

Next week me and Rachel are going to a kinfolk lunch. Are we excited? Oh yeah. Are we ready? Ready for new friends at a shared table, for Kangaroo Valley in all its sweet simplicity, for the picturesque, for the exquisite, for the spectacular, for the kind of afternoon that we dream of? Oh yeah. We were born ready.

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giggling

 source // January Morning by William Carlos Williams

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ps. don't forget to enter my Gatsby giveaway!

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cinematic style - babes of the 90s

Winona Ryder in Girl Interrupted // Alicia Silverston in Clueless (this is an Alaia!) // Liv Tyler in Empire Records // Sarah Michelle Gellar in Cruel Intentions // Gwyneth Paltrow in Great Expectations

I'm going to a 90s party tonight with all of my best gals. We've known each other since school - some of us since it was actually the 90s - and there's no-one else that I would rather dance the night away with (to the strains of if ya gettin' down, natch). Since my wardrobe is steadily becoming more and more 90s by the day I pretty much didn't even have to make a costume. I'm going to wear overalls, birkenstocks, a tartan shirt tied around my waist and a backwards cap. Grunge goodness.

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ps. don't forget to enter my Gatsby giveaway!

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all of it

'All I ever did to that apartment was hang fifty yards of yellow theatrical silk across the bedroom windows, because I had some idea that the gold light would make me feel better, but I did not bother to weight the curtains correctly and all that summer the long panels of transparent golden silk would blow out the windows and get tangled and drenched in afternoon thunderstorms. That was the year, my twenty-eighth, when I was discovering that not all of the promises would be kept, that some things are in fact irrevocable and that it had counted after all, every evasion and ever procrastination, every word, all of it.' 

Joan Didion, 'Goodbye to All That', Slouching to Bethlehem 

 miss little lime

The first time I read this chapter all I paid attention to was being twenty two in new york and feeling extraordinary and eating peaches. Now I am drawn to this bit. What is this called again? Growing up? 

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ps. my friend Belle wrote a little piece on my 'love love love' series, which brought a smile to my face today. Thank you B!

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things I'm going to do this summer - #7-11

the cobra snake // kinfolk // narumi // fashionvibe // pastry affair

seven. drip mango juice onto bare legs and terracotta tiles. 

eight. take a road trip with friends in a convertible car and sing s club seven at the top of our lungs.

nine. have breakfast by myself at cafes to read the newspaper. 

ten. wear birkenstocks and overalls every single day.

eleven. make a nordic pancake cake, maybe this summer's answer to the omnipresent eton mess.

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things I'm going to do this summer - #4-6

kinfolk // desserts for breakfast // tumblr

four. Buy a crab and take it home and actually cook it myself and eat it.

five. make popsicles. everyday. 

six. find a drive in cinema in the tri-state area and spend a night there, watching movies the way they ought to be watched; from the comfort of your own car, with ice cream.

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things I'm going to do this summer - #1-3

101 cookbooks

one. Buy fresh flowers every day. 

two. have long lunch parties with friends that turn into dinner parties that turn into sleepovers.

three. drink ALL of the champagne.

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to market

park and cube

Remembering that time me and Rachel went to the flower market on the hottest day of summer and how my hair smelt like peonies for days and we ate a breakfast plate in the sun at 8 am and felt like we had accomplished so much already and how it really was the best day ever.

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longing to stray

Rachel Kara one // two // three

I always get to this point in the year when that awesome, terrifying tug at the pit of my stomach kicks in. My feet start to itch and my mind starts to race and I start thinking about thing to see and do and eat and see in places so far from sydney, australia. If you scrolled back through my archives you'd find a similar post to this every year, in about july-august, without fail. It's when it's cold and quiet and there's nothing to do but dream. This year there is actually plenty to do; there's a thesis to write and friends who have been neglected all semester to see and granola to bake and stories to think up and then get down on paper (that's the hard part). But I'm a dreamer. I always have been. I'm a dreamer and a bit of a wanderer. I'm that type of wanderer who takes great delight in leaving but perhaps even more delight in coming home, if only so I can shower people in souvenirs and stories and snapshots of the places I have been. Right now I'm thinking about New York. The last time I was there I had such a good time I almost didn't want to come home. With every subsequent trip I get more comfortable there, in my beautiful Brooklyn neighbourhood with my beautiful Brooklyn friends. I never want to leave them. It feels so right, eating bagels cross-legged on their couch or watching the superbowl as the snow fell softly down. Or, by turns, heading out to conquer the city with Rachel in the infancy of our friendship, laughing out loud at ridiculous waitresses and the cold and $2 tim tams and the promise of pizza. New York is a city for when you're young, and for peaches and warm subway air and being twenty-two. I think I'm ready for you again.

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just married

So one of my best friends got married today. Some of you who have been reading for a long time might remember Brooke, a friend I met through blogging, and who used to have a blog herself. Well today she tied the knot in the most light-filled, love-filled, happiest style imaginable. What a dream to be a part of her special day and what a dream to know people who are so in love their lives are already as one. Happily ever after.

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do you remember?

Photos from fashion week - remember that?? - way, way, way back when. What a week of highs and lows, of too many glasses of red wine and too many run-throughs and too many polaroid films and too many laughs because that's how we roll, we don't take it too seriously and we don't mind taking a breather, taking a pause, and taking stock of the week that was about three months later. Whoops. Working with these two has always been a bit of a dream, and at least for that week we could see each other every day and sing adele at the top of our lungs and pretend that it could always be this good.

All photos by Rachel Kara // Talisa hard at work in our beautiful room at The Cambridge Hotel, thank you! // Those perfect Surry Hills streets // Talisa, Estelle and me walking back from the Karla Spetic show // Breakfast at Mr Mo our fashion week regular // Rachel in the reflection // Estelle's amazing jewellery from her eponymous label, Estelle Deve // Lunch at The Foundry // I spy Laura at Christopher Esber // An incredible spread at Baccomatto Osteria, one of my favourite meals of the week // Keep it real

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