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Sunday 3 March 2013
Pink hair and other paraphernalia. .(scribbled at 14:35 )
It is a good day when a blogger can tick 4 things off their wish list within a couple of hours. And whilst my wish list doesn't consist of MAC lipsticks, Essie nail polish or Disco Pants from American Apparel (why do these crop up on blogs ALL THE TIME?!), I have happily spent/wasted money on material things. But BOY DOES IT FEEL GOOD.
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| The Silence Room at Selfridges, designed by Alex Cochrane Architects |
First and foremost, I have pink hair, which is honestly the most cost effective way of brightening your skin and enhancing your mood without resorting to spending £100 at the Dior counter. I am going to be so gutted when this fades out altogether, as I just can't get enough of it. I'd rather not admit how little I've washed my hair in the past week, as with all Crazy Colour hair dyes, they tend to fade at an alarming rate. I'm only 1 week in and it's already gone from the same shade that Katy Perry sported in October 2011 for InStyle magazine to (currently) the same shade as Helen Mirren's barnet. I am pondering a shade of blue or turquoise for my next hair-destroying adventure, but candyfloss-tinted hair attracts so many compliments that it's quite hard to give up. I went to the Manet: Portraying life exhibition on Friday night, and every Front of House team member there stopped to tell me they loved my hair. Admittedly, I went to the exhibition purely for two reasons alone;
1. To see The Portrait of Carolus-Duran (1876). Many years ago when I was still at school, I used to spend many a weekend volunteering at The Barber Institute of Fine Arts. Nearly every lunch break was spent admiring Manet’s über-cool brushwork (and Carolus-Duran’s dashing riding boots too, for that matter). I heard that this painting was on loan for the exhibition, so I had to go see it to relive some pretty fond memories.
2. To try and distract myself from wanting to move to another city. I often visit galleries to remind myself that I moved to London for its brilliant art scene and how I should be really making the most of that, instead of harking on about how I want to move to Paris/Liverpool/Manchester (delete as appropriate). Now, although I knew Manet spent most of his 51 years in Paris, I didn’t think reading about that in the exhibition would make me pine for Neuilly-Sur-Seine at all. How very wrong I was, by the time you reach the third gallery space, you literally walk into an oversized map of Paris, with ‘AVENUE DU ROULE’ shouting at me in all its classiness. Even though my time in Neuilly was exceptionally brief compared to my current London adventures, I miss waking up on that classy road.
Shortly after penning my last wishlist, I caved in and bought a new square-ruled Moleskine sketchbook, which even fits into my oversize studded clutch bag, meaning it will accompany me everywhere. I also caved in and bought the Hypnôse Star mascara that I spoke about, which is a ridiculously expensive purchase considering that I fly off to Amsterdam on Thursday morning and I currently have about €5 to my name sitting in my European purse. I had some pretty good career-related news last week (I’ll blog about this nugget of information next month), but my brother bought me a congratulations gift of a new Rouge in Love lipstick, in a delicious shade of Rouge St. Honoré (also known as 181N). I’ve been a slave to their Violette Coquette shade for so long, but this red is really wearable, and somehow compliments my pink hair really well! My previous go-to red lippie was the sultry-looking Caprice from Lancôme’s L’Absolu Rouge range, but they don’t feel as moisturising or rich as the RiL shades do.
Whilst I'm aware that it is March already, I'll be writing a new 'Liste de Tâches' once I'm back from Amsterdam. Before I set off for Heathrow, I’ve got a fair amount of ‘personal admin’ to be getting on with (e.g- find my mislaid passport), as well as going to a meeting at The Photographers’ Gallery on Tuesday and finding time to bake a batch of croissants because admittedly, that did not get ticked off my To-Do list for February.
Thankfully, some areas of my life are in better organisation. I did buy some of Cocomaya's 'Amsterdam' chocolate earlier in the week (in the background of above image), which I'm going to scoff for breakfast with my mother when I meet her at Kings Cross next week before we head to the airport. I picked this up in Selfridges, as Cocomaya’s European-City-Chocolate is now being sold at the Oxford Street branch. Ah-mazing! This particular infusion contains actual hemp extract (!)
To skim over everything else that's happened since my last post:
I spent last weekend lazing around in the delights of Sutton Coldfield, eating apple pie with my grandmother, which set me up for this week’s madness. I was at the V&A on Tuesday evening for their Design Cultures Salon, which is part of a series of events where a set of speakers talk about Design Theory and how certain external elements are affecting the Design community. This particular discussion was thematically concerned with the notion of Design Activism. I have a lot to blog about with these, but I’ll be writing a full write-up of the events once I’ve attended the following 2 sessions, which are ‘How does design function during a recession’ and ‘How does design produce new publics’. The last of the series isn’t until the end of April, so pop back to have a read about the sessions once May is here.
The following morning, I set off for Birmingham to interview candidates for a Project Assistant role at Ikon Gallery… I met so many talented people that day, it was pretty inspiring! This was a chance to sample the delights of Café Opus, which is the newly opened restaurant that sits on the ground floor of Ikon. After an afternoon drinking delicately-crafted flat white coffee, it has firmly cemented itself as the best place for a caffeine fix in Brum. And for a light lunch too, for that matter! I opted for their tasty Salmon & Chive Cake with watercress and wild rocket leaves (£6), which was followed up with an equally as tasty glass of house red wine that evening, which was very reasonably priced too. And the best part of Café Opus? ITS DAMN GOOD TASTE IN FURNITURE. As soon as I figure out where they get their designer chairs from, I will devote an entire post to how utterly beautiful they are.
I met my mother that morning for a Krispy Kreme breakfast at Selfridges to finalise Amsterdam plans (okay, so I’d scoffed a whopping eight croissants at London Euston prior to boarding the train that morning, but who can resist those doughnuts?!) Anyway, we popped into Zara and my mom spotted this blazer which I snapped up in an instant. As something that isn’t grey or black, this is quite a sartorial leap for me, but it’s really versatile, and the print seems very Netherlands-y. Ish. I had to crop my legs out of this photo as no one wants to see a pair of pale bruised legs after devouring a Sunday roast dinner. I’ve managed to (sort of) resist wearing this until I go on holiday, but this is what I wore to the Lichtenstein retrospective at Tate Modern yesterday.
This bottom of these images is an automatic drawing machine, which was mind blowing, quite frankly.
...And it is only as I now hit the 'publish blog post' button on Blogger.com after inherently waffling on about how much unnecessary stuff I’ve bought do I now realise that:
a- I’ve forgotten to pay my rent for the month
b- My oyster card has a mere 60p on it
Merde.
Labels: ART DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE, Cafe Opus Ikon, Candyfloss Crazy Color Review, Ceri Hand Gallery, CLOTM, Lancome Maquillage, Manet Portraying Life, Sartorial, The Barber Institute, V and A Salon
