The Row Fall 2015. Or, why are fashion people obsessed with XXXL knits?

Unsolved mystery: just what is it about an oversized, chunky knit sweater that has fashion people obsessed? It is sixty-million degrees where I am right now – on a beach in Australia – yet the close up of those sweaters from The Row’s Fall 2015 presentation has me, like fashion people everywhere, wanting one on my body right now.

Let’s break this down:
Oversized, chunky, turtleneck (good)
Super soft cashmere (getting better)
Sleeves so long your hands both are invisible and obsolete (even better)
So long it’s almost – but not quite – a dress (bingo!).
People, we have ourselves one of the most instagrammed looks in the collection.

The magic powers of superfine purism that attract the fashion fanatic have always been the bread and butter of the Olsens at The Row – succinct but confident cuts, premium fabrication, refined palette – but for Fall ’15 there’s a shift towards an even paler shade of white. Cuts are refined to the point of austerity, the businesslike b+w is infused with flashes of oatmeal, butterscotch and seventies-era brown, fabrications are luxurious silk, coverted cashmere buttery leather. These are kinds of words that make for flutter-hearting fashion people.

The fugly summer slide reincarnates here as a simple Moroccan mule slipper (worn with sheer tights), spring’s 70s redux is done The Row way in early-autumn shades… tan and brown worn back with not-quite white… the leather, too, is distinctly 70s in chocolate, both crisp and warm at once with curved lapels and a belted robe cut. Felts are so boxy you could send packages in them; bags are oversized and hugged to the body; belts are double-wrapped obis. Of course there’s plenty of signature slouch by way of wide legs and cocoons, oh and geez – that blond-white silk maxi dress.

It’s no new news –off-the grid minimalism is hardly new, especially at the Row – but the mysteries of puritanism beguile here in a subtle shift of energy. The shift is in the detail, the suede slip-ons and robes that just could, feasibly, be worn at a day spa – the most luxuriant day spa imaginable which you probably can’t afford, naturally – and the quiet sensuality of slip-me-off silks.

Slanting light, modernist interiors, pant suits… It could be a more Manhattan mind state at work– there’s something suggestive the kind of NYC woman who shimmers out of cars hugging a leather bag and an iPhone 6+, bedroom and boardroom at once.

There’s a compelling contradiction at play: hot/cold, puritanical cuts and sensuality in the detail. It’s a compelling contradiction, seductively quiet rather than overt. Ingénue she is not: a cool New Yorker, all polish, confidence and refinement – long live minimalism – yeah, she’s a purist, but with sensual details and depth. The effect is both gamine and gutsy: the soft power of the boss lady.

Check out the whole show at Style.com. Photos from same source.

Catch-22

One of those books that sat on the ‘to read, eventually’ pile for years: I finally picked up an old yellowed edition of Catch-22 for £1 at my local Oxfam bookshop. My initial reaction was like a deer in headlights; dazzled by the sheer shambolic anarchy I suddenly found myself in, I didn’t know how to make sense of it, or if it was actually supposed to make sense – chronology slipped here, there and everywhere, character descriptions were delightfully contradictory, events bordered on absurd and then became absurd entirely.

Now, I like a little literary confusion and invention (I actually read all of Ulysses once, in university. True story), so I was intrigued, and had my suspicions that it could be much more cohesive and sensical (how is this not a word?) than initial impressions suggested. Not that non-cohesive and nonsensical books forego entertainment or enjoyment, but I admit that sometimes what works for the intellect can negate what works for the emotions when it comes to writing. So would it be an intellectual or purely literary exercise then? Well; partly. But it combined emotional engagement with a truly illogical world and an obviously apparent literary structure that worked for rather than against that engagement. And in a way that no other medium, I think, could do, it played with the inherent nature of literature and surprised me with its uniqueness. In short: it is brilliant. It had me mesmerised until that final, fleeting, perfect ending. It is unlike any other novel I've read, and possibly the best piece of anti-war writing I've come across. Have you read it? What was your take?

Perfume review Part I: Chloé

What they say: "This scent captures the creative, confident individuality of a free spirited women with an utterly innate sense of chic and natural sexiness. The fragrance playfully twists notions of femininity, taking the classic beautiful rose and translating it with modernity into a vibrant, powdery floral eau de parfum. It is translucent, turning warm and seductive, totally addictive. Fresh green airy notes subtly grow richer and more sensual revealing the velvety interior of the rose. The base notes of warm amber, honey and elegant cedar wood create a smooth and comforting finish."

Soundtrack: Downtown : Peaches
Let’s make love and listen to death from above : CSS



The girls: Clémence Poésy, ( I love looking at your name, though I have NO CLUE how to pronounce it), Anja Rubik & Chloë Sevigny. It appears being a) blonde and b) having a name with umlauts or other diacritical marks is necessary to be a “Chloé girl”. Being inept on both counts is slightly discouraging.

I say: There’s a pleasing symmetry to the bottle: the rippled cube is perfect for the geometrically inclined, but saved from masculinity by a cute-as-a-button (or should that be cute-as-a-bow? Buttons aren’t actually that cute, though this is debatable… but I digress) ribbon in that perfect shade of Chloe pinky-beige. Would look at home amid powdery boudoirs, seamed silk stockings and fancy pink-iced cakes.

Don’t let “classic rose” put you off: scent is girlie without being at all nana-ish (not that nanas aren’t awesome. We could all learn a lot from nanas, they know what they're doing, particularly re: how and when to take afternoon naps & the secret art of having fresh breath at ALL TIMES.)

Chloe is sexy. In a vintage lingerie in shades of ivory, Champs-Elysées at dusk, fairy lights on ornate french doors, low summer sunshine glowing through back-lit hair, dressing tables full of treasures and concoctions, girlish high teas in frocks, insouciant kind of sexiness. Which is the best kind.

Book Review: My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead

We all know love is very nice. It’s all you need, money can’t buy it, and other Beatles lyrics. But love in literature? More specifically, love in the short story? Is it nice? Or is it a demoralizing, unforgivably prosaic affair? If you ask Jeffrey Eugenides, he of the gorgeous Virgin Suicides and the other one that would be equally as popular if only Sofia Coppola would make a film about it, it’s pretty much 30/70. That is, if you take his anthology of short stories, My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead as evidence.

Dead birds aren’t very nice. You know it, I know it. Big Jeff knows it. But the cover is: all dreamy hearts and flowers. Very pretty and Hallmarkian. (Hey I just invented a word!) It’s this mix of ethereal sweetness, and something darker and more real, that makes love (and love stories) so friggen interesting. There’s no saccharine sentiment to speak of in this book. There’s something much darker brewing in these 26 short stories.

That’s not to say this book isn’t filled with lyricism and insight – it is – or it lacks the pleasurable heart of what keeps us so endlessly enthralled with the idea and the reality of love – it doesn’t – it is just that these realities are intensified by their opposite: love being thwarted, de-railed, unrequited, lost, thrown away, complicated, relegated to the world of the mundane. The hopeless romantic will, in turns, hurl this book to the corner of their room and scoop it up to see what happens next.

My picks:
Spring in Fialta, Vladimir Nabokov
First Love and Other Sorrows , Harold Brodkey.