tis' the season

Trotski and Ash is my favourite food blog on the whole entire internet. They have made a lovely white linen tea towel this Christmas season that helps you keep track with what fruit and vegetables are in season. Available here for $20.

Client London

"Worn with the Prim Polka dot blouse the outfit is Power Dressing for now. This is the outfit that the girls of Mad Men would be wearing to work today…all slinky skirt besides the photocopier and fertive glances to the boss behind his closed doors"

This is how luxury brand Client London describes its classic pencil skirt, on sale here. The brand describes itself as a:

 'lifestyle label of women's clothing and accessories for work and play, for day and night, from the boardroom to the bedroom...Client brings structure into your life, putting the primness and the strict back into everyday. The dark glamour, the danger and desire of 1940s film noir, of Hitchcock. These are the clothes of fantasy - from secretary to spy, from clerk to customer.'

The website really sets the scene for the clothes:

'She’s an English spy and she’s dressed immaculately in a tailored grey office dress, a hint of red in the split in the skirt, a flash of sensuality as she runs.  She’s running down a Berlin alleyway in black patent Mary-Janes, holding her tote tight against herself.  Her chignon is perfectly coiffed.  The soundtrack is French techno.'

While I would wear the pencil skirt above paired with the silk blouse it is styled with, I am not sure about the rest of the military chic gear that seems to invoke the SS. Although, this 'Requisitioned British Nurses Dress' is quite fetching...

Ana Maria Jensen

While staying at my boyfriend's holiday home, I have been taking my espresso in the most gorgeous cup and saucer by designer Ana Maria Hernandez Y Jensen. She lives in country Victoria and makes beautiful ceramics. Here is what she says about her work (lifted from the Wilkins and Kent online store - they stock her smaller pieces):

“During my stay in Denmark, many years ago, I did an apprentice as a potter, at Sonderborg technical school. Beside Denmark I have worked in several countries, England, France....and now in Australia. I came here more than 10 years ago. But I will always look back to the danish craftsmanship and style, and will have them as my strongest influence. I make a range of hand thrown domestic ware, to be used in everyday life, and still pleasant to the eye.”

I love this green triangular bowl in stock at Wilkins and Kent - that beautiful green colour reminds me of a watermelon's skin. 

Henrietta Molinaro

As a young girl, I loved pressing flowers in heavy tomes and preserving them for months on end. Perhaps that is why I am so drawn to Cyanotype prints by Henrietta Molinaro of flowers and grasses collected and pressed in Sri Lanka, the South of France and the UK.  

being a lady

Sometimes I dress like a man, in chambray oxford shirts with pullovers and trousers, brogues. Other times I like to look like a lady, although never too much like a lady, lest someone think I'm "soft" for my profession. In the office, I certainly keep it minimal, strong and navy/charcoal based. But on the weekends, this designer is certainly making me feel like I want to both wear and buy flora and perfect   the art of applying winged liquid eyeliner.