wandering wan chai

Since my last wanderings around wan chai - just over a year ago - the up-and-coming wan chai is even more up-and-coming than before, if that was even possible. New 'hang outs' have sprung up where tattooed expats with long ponytails sink beers and eat tacos, there's a froyo place on every corner and, what seems to me to be an indication of something brewing, the world's best location for a Carven store - tucked onto a dilapidated block on Moon street. There's something about this setting, with all the grit of the industrial any of the problems of those kinds of areas (hard to get to, tricky to navigate, no public transport). It really is the best of both worlds.

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sweet

1, 5, 7 - Laduree Sydney by Broadsheet // 2 - the prettiest rose petal drinks on Kinfolk journal // 3 - Macaron-hued nail polish (raspberry, pistachio and violette, no?) and my candy-striped make up bag by Cuval // 4 - mint-green walls and hand-painted bowls // 6 - Laduree in London by K // 8 - the only delicatesse in my wardrobe, a blowsy silk shirt and some bow-backed Carven ballet flats.

Laduree has opened its doors in Sydney, and I can't wait to get in line. Macarons are one of life's great small pleasures, and when done well - and not all places do great macarons, in Sydney Baroque's are so fantastic they made my mother, the OG francophile herself, weep - they are one of life's greatest. The first time I had a Laduree macaron I was in Paris as a teenager, bright-eyed but hopelessly devoted to 'fashON', dragging my mother and my aunt around Paris so that I could buy such ridiculous things as pink converse high tops and von dutch hats (in Paris, I ask you!). On one such occasion my mother, exhausted and worn out by so much chain-store hopping, dragged me into the Champs Elysees tea room, sat me down on one of those plush velvet seats and ordered me a cafe gourmand; a cup of China Jasmine tea and three macarons. The flavours were Rose petal, vanilla and blackberry (which I have never seen at a Laduree since!). Each one was crispy on the outside yet chewy - very, very chewy, cake-like almost - on the inside, with pillows of soft sweetness and that layer of sticky something in between for a bit of a kick. There were black spots of real vanilla bean through the ganache. The blackberry flavour had a tiny little pod of spongey marshmallow in the middle - quelle surprise! - like a birthday present.

Sure, there's a lot of hype around Laduree, and you have to queue for hours just to get a look in, and yes, I agree with all the naysayers (Blair Waldorf, I'm looking at you) that Pierre Herme ones are wonderful too - they have a mint and pea flavour which tastes like a balmy English afternoon in Spring - and Jean-Paul Hevin's tiny little melt-in-your-mouth creations aren't bad either, (oh god, now I sound like Bridget Jones), but really, why can't you just have your cake and eat it too? I am firmly of the camp that yells out "the more the merrier" kind of like a hedonist's "YOLO". And if they're good enough for Marie Antoinette, they're good enough for me.

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chop

one // two // three

It took a little while, but I've gotten used to my short hair. Most of my friends have seen it and gasped and commented and commiserated and now I've gotten so comfortable with it that I can't really remember what it was like to have long hair. I don't really remember the sensation of tieing it back and twisting it up and plaiting it down. For me, now, life is so much simpler. I wash it, it dries. That's it. I sleep with it out or in a bun, and in the morning I pull it down and head out the door. When I had long hair I had to throw all sorts of deep, leave-in conditioners at it just to make it behave. It was dry. The colour was starting to fade. Now it's back to my natural colour, which is dark dark dark, and that was a shock at first, but I don't really miss the blonde at all. I don't miss the dry ends and the coarseness of dyed hair. I don't even really miss the length - except when I see girls with luscious long locks flick them around. But, as with all things you lose, the longer you live without it the less it hurts. There's something so easy and simple and totally uncomplicated about this slightly too-long bob that's all one length. I tuck a strand or two behind my ear and that's all. It's so healthy now that I don't need to do anything else, which I think is the way hair really ought to be. And because the bottom line of my style was, is, and always will be comfort and ease, I couldn't think of a better hairstyle to match it.

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ps. no-one makes Carven look as good as MNZ

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