Uber

graphic by Talisa Sutton, image from Vogue Germany via Rag Pony

Fashion week is hovering just around the corner and there's so much I can't wait to share with you. This year I'll be pairing up again with Talisa and adding Rachel Kara on cameras to the mix, literally something of a blogging dream team. Soon I'll be able to show and tell you all, but for now, here's a little end-of-long-weekend treat. Uber - the personal private car hire app - has launched in Sydney and to celebrate - just in time for fashion week! - they've offered a special treat for our readers; a $20 credit for your first ride. All you have to do is sign up for the app using the code capturecastle. I'll be using Uber cars next week with Talisa and Rachel as we run around town from show to show. I'm not going to lie, arriving in a sleek black car (not that I know anything about cars, but that sure sounds good) is going to be a bit of a thrill. Who knows, I might even wear heels!

Don't forget to sign up to Uber and use the code capturecastle for $20 credit to your first ride!

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ghost

shop ghost one two three

It's girls, girls, girls over at the new and improved Shop Ghost. I like the new direction the site has taken. Low-fi shots of gals and their clothes are my kind of thing. (also, Parrot Cay resort, yes please).

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how pleasant

"How pleasant it is to spend an evening in this way! I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book!—When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library." 

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (I know it's the awful Miss Bingley who says this, and it's meant to be ironic, but I do love this quote!)

one, pleasure: The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy, Winter by Adam Gopnik accompanied by cafe au lait bowls full of tea, Maison.Balzac Le Sud and Serge Lutens Five O'Clock Au Gingembre

two, study: Stephanie LaCava's Extraordinary Theory of Objects, From Russia With Love by Ian Fleming, Orientalism by Edward Said, accompanied by jam donuts and a leopard print clutch by Zimmermann from their new collection (thank you!)

three, comfort: Where I was from by Joan Didion, Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner, accompanied by cranberry and caramel chocolate, a COS sweater, Catbird Fleurs de Nuit candle, Chanel's June and May nail polish.

four: my favourite spread from Maurice Chevalier's Paris

Long weekends are all about reading. Reading for pleasure, reading for study, reading recipes, reading essays, reading poetry and reading obscure 15th century treatises on Christianity. The proper accompaniments for reading are any/all of the following: cups of tea, scented candles, oversized opticals, brightly coloured nailpolish, cosy knitted sweaters and blocks of chocolate. I always seem to have a pile of books two metres high next to my bed. Hopefully this weekend I can reduce the load just a tiny little bit. Reading is such a forgotten, underrated luxury.

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class of 2013

 1- 3 - my images, 4 - Valentina styled by me in Zimmermann A/W 2013-2014, photographed by Holly Blake

Zimmermann always have the best presentations. You might remember that last season's badgals of the 80s show at Koskela was Talisa's and my favourite of all of MBFWA (and not just because they plied us with freshly squeezed orange juice and bacon and egg rolls before the show, though that did help). I think it has to do with the way that the Zimmermann team approach the new season; they think about references (last year it was Susan Ford washing her car, this year the girls of St Trinians in their short skirts and hockey sticks), they pick the right accessories (Tamila Purvis' crest-emblazoned oversized pendant necklaces) and they understand their customer, who next season will be embracing lacey bra-lets under sheer shirts and double-breasted blazers. Then they curate an atmosphere to show it to the world; they shoot the lookbook at Sydney's answer to Hogwarts (my old school!), they set up with little bottles of champagne (the naughty kind you might have smuggled into school on muck up day), they call in a gorgeous model and a talented photographer and then they let you run wild and play. I ended up choosing the navy pleat-front trousers and a beautiful orange one-shouldered crop top (the colour of Chanel's June), but it wasn't easy to bypass leopard-print jumpsuits, lace embellished shirt dresses and Zimmermann's signature finesse with prints (this season a pencil-illustrated crest and bow print, emblazoned in black and white across silky shirts and skirts).

This wasn't a literal translation of going 'back to school'. I definitely didn't wear jacquard and brocade on my days off when I was a grubby knee-ed thirteen year old. But seeing the collection (and the lookbook, which brings back so many memories!) reminded me of the classes we took in year eleven. It was a heritage year at my school, and to celebrate they ran a few specialty, novelty classes for seniors, classes that formed part of the original curriculum when the school first opened in 1882. One of these was 'life lessons for ladies'. We learnt how to sit properly on a chair when on stage (legs crossed at the ankles and tucked to the side, never over the knee), how to exit a sportscar without losing one's dignity, how to dance the waltz. It was the mid 2000s and it was tongue-in-cheek, but looking at Zimmermann's new collection brought some of those tips flooding back. Those lessons just might come in handy when you're getting up to no good - as schoolgirls are wont to do - when you don Zimmermann's new collection when it drops into stores later this year.

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morning rituals

Morning rituals are, by definition, comforting in their simplicity. Nothing complicated or fussy, nothing requires too much thinking. You've just risen from the land of sleep so you're not about to make a croquembouche or read Proust for fun. Even if you're the most morning of morning people - like me - routines at the start of the day will always have an air of ease about them. For most of my life mine has been this; a slow, cautious rise from bed with lots of yawning and stretching, splashing my face quickly in the bathroom, and a tall, cold glass of water drunk standing up, leaning against the wall in my garden. After that it's anyone's game, but I rarely start well if I haven't done all of those things. Even in winter I stand out in my garden - rugged up in sweaters and scarves when necessary, and socks on my feet - because fresh air and sunlight, however scant, is so important to the act of waking up. Now I have one more thing to add to my rituals. A swig of Aesop's new mouthwash - peppery and fresh, minty like toothpaste with just the right amount of aniseed-y aftertaste - right before I walk out the door. In that tall, proud bottle, with Aesop's trademark restrained packaging and branding, it's one more comforting simple thing for the start of my day.

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lunch party

Impromptu larch parties call for quick dishes - pasta with herbs and ricotta cheese folded through (everyone I know who has tried it has asked for seconds), a peach and demerara sugar cake and bunches and bunches of flowers. Keeping it simple is the key, but also keeping it light. A plate of pasta that feels like a salad, and a cake that is as airy as a cloud. That's the secret.

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The Society Inc.

Broadsheet

I wrote a little profile on Sibella Court's beautiful store The Society Inc for Broadsheet. You can read the story here. It's funny, it's right around the corner from my house (literally) but I had never been before. It reminded me a lot of au petit bonheur la chance, and I can't wait to go back (maybe when I get my own place to decorate). 

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bits and pieces

A perfect morning spent alone with Maison Balzac, Broadsheet and muesli // Girls just want to have fun at the Glassons presentation // Fresh flowers, always // Procrastibake success! These chocolate and rosewater cupcakes with surprise raspberries were winners all round (they're nigella, of course) // Ice cream and flowers in Kinfolk, could there be a more perfect combination?

All the best ones seem to slip through the cracks, again and again and again.

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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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we invite you to...

Talisa and I have a new venture - now you can shop our closets! Click through for our sale site.

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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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what is this light that holds us fast?

"When he grew tired of walking he went to the cinema. (Ah, cinema, solace of the lonely young men and women of all great cities.) He saw a film a day, sometimes two. He became a connoisseur of the non-time that preceded the films themselves, especially in small cinemas where there were no advertisements or previews, where the audience was made up of four or five people, all of them alone. It is easy to see why, in films, fugitives and wanted men went to the cinema: not just to hide in the dark but because these intervals between performances were out of time. To all intents and purposes you might as well not have existed - and yet, simultaneously you were acutely conscious of your existence. When the lights faded - always that same sequence of perception: the lights are fading, no they're not, yes they are, yes - and the curtains cranked back slightly to extend the tiny screen, there was always a moment, after the studio logos had been displayed, when the blaze of projected colour lit up the screen like Eden on the first day of creation. Disappointment and boredom often set in very soon afterwards but, for a few minutes at least, Luke's head filled with verdant images of city and sky, landscape and trees, and he believed utterly in the cinema's loneliness-obliterating promise of brightness and colour." 

Geoff Dyer, Paris Trance

La Pagode cinema in Paris

March is humidity and heat, peaches and ginger, university and work, counting pennies and splurging recklessly, and - of course - the french film festival. It is all of these things but it is mostly the french film festival. For the whole of March my mum and I walk up our street to the cinema in the town hall, we queue up amidst the crowds of people gabbing away in impassioned, mellifluous tones that could only be French, we file in and take our seats (red and squishy) in the darkened hall, we check our phones and munch our popcorn/smuggled goods like Mazet chocolate, we bite our lips as the lights dim, we sit through 20 minutes of awful advertisements for Tefal and Renault cars, and then (then!) we catch our breath as the screen lights up and for one brief moment we could be anywhere, but mostly we could be in Paris. Oh, what is this light that holds us fast?

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brace

Photo (and many more in the magazine!) by Rachel Kara

Delayed gratification: it comes naturally to those who refuse to eat their food until it has been instagrammed (and haven't we all been guilty of that) but sometimes when you're sitting on something so good - a veritable gold mine, in fact - you just can't wait to share it. Such as a boy you really, really like. Or, in this case, an amazing day with an amazing woman that resulted in an article with amazing photographs for an amazing new magazine simply called Brace. It is about to be printed and distributed and if you want to pre-order a copy you can, maybe because you're curious about Elise, the founder of beautiful candle label Maison Balzac and her life swathed in the idyll of her country New South Wales home. Or maybe because you're curious about Bread and Circus, a canteen paean to organic goodness helmed by the indubitable Amanda Becchara. Both of these articles are in the first issue of Brace, and both have been written by me and photographed with the incredible warmth and playfulness and a more unknown, harder to describe, yet undeniably exquisite light-seeking quality that I have come to associate with Rachel's pictures. Well, you'll find all that and more (like Talisa's styling work and Nicole's photography, or the hunk of Puberty Blues Sean Keenan (styled with Billy Bride jewellery and brooding good looks) in the first issue of Brace. Delayed gratification: it ain't easy, but boy, the rewards are sweet.

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instant italy

Italy in a blur of blue and white and (red) and green, just as it should be.

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chill out

Three ways to cool down in Sydney's summer second wind.

one. one-ingredient 'magic' banana ice cream from the Kitchn

two. hot cocoa popsicles with marshmallows and chocolate chips from Pastry Affair

three. whipped ricotta and berries from the Tart Tart

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blush

 purple

 I always love the sets at the Celine fashion shows. Often - thought not always - held at the Tennis Club, they tend to run along that fine line of graphic minimalism, with organic materials, modernistic seating and something dynamic to hold it all together. The ceiling display this year is what really caught my eye. The opaque lightboxes were beautifully rendered, and those long, slightly haphazard stretches of blush and white paint. The white - splodgy and impatiently daubed on with the air of something done not for posterity but for convenience - reminds me of the stores, with their exposed wiring and waxed floors, so low-fi that when I first went into the Celine store on Madison Ave in New York I thought it hadn't been finished yet (faux pas). But it's the blush that is best. That beautiful, rosy-cheeked pink hue, that reminds me of all those lovely Benah bags from a couple of seasons ago, that reminds of me of Talisa and her paintings last year, that reminds me of being young and sweet, so unlike Celine, which makes it very like Celine indeed. That pink - with its white blemishes throughout - is the perfect reflection.

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the OG

olsens anonymous 

Ashley Olsen, making looking good her job since 2005.
 

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the scenes

vogue uk 

What a delicious thing to find on a Sunday morning. The day when you lay about on couches in ballgowns, waiting for tuxedo-clad strangers to lend you a helping hand. The day when you buy flowers and spritz perfume and pretend you're in your own mini-movie. The day when - if it's hot enough, and it definitely is - you politely daydream of splashing about in a fountain or diving (still in the ballgown) head-first into a blueberry-blue pool. Miss Dior Cherie, you had me at Sofia Coppola, but these photos (and the Tim Walker lensed campaign) make it all so much sweeter.

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