a little bit fancy

Celine Trio // Tome Tunic from My Chameleon // RMK heels

Outfit planning for my Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week with Talisa and Rachel. This one is a little bit fancy - I don't normally wear heels but fashion week seems as good a time as any. These ones are just little baby heels though, and they're easy and comfortable. A nice change from my signature sandals!

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sale!

This week for four days my favourite online store My Chameleon and PR company Undergroup will be holding a flash sale. I know for a fact that there are some incredible bargains to be found from so many different brands, including some of my personal favourites, such as Tome, Benah and Dieppa Restrepo at up to 75% off. How exciting, and just in time for a little wardrobe update before fashion week... Maybe see some of you there!

Thursday - Sunday, opening at 10 AM

236A Riley St Surry Hills

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found

1-2, 5, 7 - pages from MUJI Found, 3 - Byredo Perfume Dispenser, 4 - TOME tunic from My Chameleon, 6 - Celine Aviators, 8 - Dieppa Restrepo loafers from My Chameleon and Porselli ballet flats

 

This book is one of my favourite buys from Tokyo. I picked it up from the MUJI flagship store in Marounouchi (the one with a restaurant, oh be still my heart!) but only got the chance to have a proper flick through it once I got back to Sydney. "Rather than just making things, MUJI has always taken the stance of "searching and finding" a lifestyle," the first page says. "We search throughout the world for items that have long been used in daily life without ever going out of fashion, improve on them a little to fit changing lifestyles, culture and customs and reproduce them at a reasonable price." I have always loved Muji's retail philosophy, but this book has really reinforced all the conceptions that I had about the brand. Filled with low-fi, analogue images of everything from bamboo chopsticks and plastic wrapping from China to naan bread dishes from India and - my favourite section, of course - the classical beauty of Paris ("France is always a model for Japan, in fact, it is a model for the world"), the book celebrates everyday life as it is distilled in the objects that litter our existence. It is minimal and simple, a fete of paper napkins and handwriting as well as hand-embroidery and the particular elegance of Parisian streets. Of Paris, the book says "Streets of stone, bridges of stone. A city created to never change". 

 

The idea has struck me recently as I unpacked my bags and set about resuming Sydney life. I have long searched for a wardrobe that is built to last, created to never change. As I add - and subtract - from the bits and pieces hanging up, folded down, stacked in boxes and piled in their dustbags above and below, I have always been moving slowly yet steadily towards that end goal. Some of the items that I have found along the way are odd - yellow suede ballet flats, flashy aviators with a horn trim - but that is all part of the fun. Style is as much about the idiosyncrasies and the outliers as it is about the standard. I think what I love most is how comfortable I am about my standard now. I know instantly, sensorily, the first touch of a murky brown cotton twill tunic, the first feel of my toes in a pair of loafers, the first sight of those Parisian streets. It has something to do with growing up, I think, but also to do with where I am in my life at the moment. I know what I'm doing. And that, inextricably, yet undeniably, helps with what I'm wearing.

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true grit

TOME A/W 13 collection, via Oyster

I feel like I say this every time I see a new TOME collection, but it's true. This is so good. And if my effusions have become meaningless due to their sheer size and quantity then so be it. But it's true, it really is. I think I might like this collection best of all. It reminds me of something that Mattie from True Grit might wear - once she grows up a bit and takes out those stern plaited pigtails (now there's a cinematic style waiting to be written). Thick belts, wide trousers, flared coats cut short at the back, the perfect fedora... These are things that you wear back on the ranch - something Dree Hemingway might be seen in on her own private idaho - while you slow-roast meat on a fire or cross-stitch a little somethin' somethin' in your log cabin. Then you pop on those satin trousers and that sheer blouse for when you're invited to the Governor's ball and, darn, you haven't got a stitch to wear. It's a way of dressing for winter that is so peculiarly American, equal parts Jo March (wouldn't she look great in that scarlet gown with the plisse pleating?) and Jennifer Lawrence, perfect for girls with feline looks and long, long hair (your one beauty!) and sturdy lace up boots. It's all of that -  ice-skating on frozen rivers and plaid and drinking out of jam jars - only modernised, which makes it so, so much better, because, in my world at least, there's a place for things like wide leather belts and shearling collars and low ponytails and burgundy stripe tunics (there's always a place for stripes!), even if you're not back on the ranch but you're just back at home, reading Evelyn Waugh and eating ricotta and honey on toast. I can't wait to see what My Chameleon pick up from this collection.

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dance dance dance

tome nyc

I loved TOME's FW collection. I loved that delicate balance between masculine and feminine - the silk slips and the side-legged tobacco hued slacks, the oversized coats and the smocks with karate belt-ties. I loved that colour palette of browns and cornflower blue, I loved the shapes of those slim-cut trousers and swingy tunics. And I love it all even more in their new campaign video, where Rachel Rutt tip-top-taps her way across the screen in some of my favourite pieces; such as the extra-wide brown slacks, the car twill coat and the colour blocked smock. Seeing clothes in motion is always the best - on the runway, in videos, in stop-motion animations of clean-faced girls with great hair dancing around - because it gives you an idea of how the pieces really work in true-life situations. Maybe in a lookbook you might be intimidated by those super, super, super XXL trousers, but after you see them swishing about on Rachel Rutt you might re-think that decision. I know I did.

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the now

Etoile Isabel Marant Omi trench coat, TOME grey marle raglan sweater from My Chameleon, Hope Granny sweater, Van Rycke Onde Positive necklace, 3.1 Phillip Lim 31 hour day bag, Hope news trousers, The Row sunglasses, PetiteGrand for My Chameleon anklets x 2, K Jacques Barigoule sandals in tan

 Tome cropped coat from My Chameleon, Bassike beige tee, Dries Van Noten x Linda Farrow sunglasses, Van Rycke Onde positive necklace from My Chameleon, COS lace bra and knickers set, Van Rycke diamond solitaire ring from My Chameleon, Le Mont St Michel sweater, COS straight leg jeans, Byredo Blanche EDT, Sofia Coppola x LV bag, Michael Kors Runway watch

A.P.C New trench coat, TOME Italian denim shirt from My Chameleon, The Row x Linda Farrow sunglasses, Faliero Sarti beige scarf, Van Rycke heart bracelet, PetiteGrand x My Chameleon bracelet, Isabel Marant bracelet, Celine trapeze bag, Hope news trousers, Isabel Marant Dicker boots in black

1 and 6: badlands, 3: RUSSH, 5 and 7: My Chameleon, the rest: my polyvore

When RUSSH profiled TOME way back when, they summed it up better than anyone else. "TOME is now." Some things are so compelling that even though you are looking at the future (future seasons, future collections, future orders) you can only think about now. So it was when I first saw that original slice of TOME last year, the two-tone denim shirts, the flirty taffeta skirts, the simple dresses and easy silk tees. So it is now when I look at shots from their new collection - the best of which Talisa has joined together on her blog, including that incredible oversized trench coat, probably the best of the variety I've seen in a while, and the amazing Karate Kid-esque white smock, complete with obi belt and high neckline - and can do nothing but long, and I mean actually long, for these pieces to be in my wardrobe now. It's the cruel irony of the international fashion circuit that the moment you see clothes pertinent to your season now (European winter collections were just presented on the runways and are being shown at the moment) it is accompanied by the knowledge that they won't be in stores for another 6 months. When all I want to do is wear TOME now, please, I have to wait a little while for that amazing trench and smock to drop. Until then, I'll settle for gazingly lovingly at their first offering, admiring those soft-as-anything jerseys and silky-smooth taffetas and dreaming of the kind of wardrobe where nothing is forced, nothing is difficult, and everything is of the now.

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