A safe addiction - Liberty scarves

Is it scarves or scarfs? No matter, the important thing is that we all agree that scarves are wonderful, wonderful inventions. Is there anything as good when it's cold and raining and miserable outside than wrapping yourself in a giant knitted cashemre scarf of amazingness? Well, probably, yes, but still it's up there with some of the better things in life.
But despite the cold edge to the air, it's not quite the time for giant cashmere scarves that would make you faint from heat exhaustion on the tube. No, it's still just about the right time for floaty strips of chiffon, squares of silk and triangles of bightly coloured cotton.
An no-where offers a better selection than Liberty's scarf room which has just relaunched in the hallowed dark wood panelled central hall of one of the UK's best shops.
I had a sneak peak on Thursday and it's rather glorious, with styling stations to teach us lesser mortals how to stop a stupidly expensive square of silk sticking to your lipstick or flying off in the wind. After all  these scarves, although spectacularly beautiful, do tend to be tricky to wear.
They have a nasty tendency to fall off at innappropriate times, which means you are constantly tugging at them. You knot one around your neck to stop it flying away and it suddenly tightens and now you're being strangled, which really is too much suffering even for fashion.
Which is why it seems especially magnanimous of Liberty to take its expertise, or rather those of its chief scarf tier Lauranne, to the masses via the very modern medium of youtube with these rather charming videos.











The scarf is definitely having a moment. Hermes launched a useful resource a few weeks ago now in the shape of its own scarf campaign site called Jaime Mon Carre, or I Love My Scarf. It also has a number of tutorials organised to reflect the styles of women living in some of the worlds most stylish cities - London, New York, Paris and Tokyo (hah Milan, you are too boring for us). Those damn French do still manage to outshine the rest of us though.

Image via Living Dolls because I can't get the site to work on my laptop to take a screen grab for some reason

Neither the Liberty videos or the Hermes site are especially new, but they've both merited repeated viewings from me over the last three weeks or so.
The result is that I want even more scarves than the suitcase full I already own (in my defense it's a very, very small vintage vanity case) and will be wiling away a number of hours stroking hideously expensive ones that I could never in a million years afford in the new Liberty scarf room just in case you were wondering where you could find me.

Pain, pain and more pain

So the sales have started. I have had in my possession a card-holders preview voucher for the Liberty sale for over two weeks now. It sits in my wallet unused, staring at me forlornly as I fish around for the final 2p coin I need to add to the pile of shrapnel that is paying for my dinner.
In the past week, more that ten sales invites have popped into my inbox. They taunt me with their bright colours and pretty pictures. They talk to me. And they are mean. They say "har de har har, we've come to prod your financial bruises with the sharp stick of discounted fashion things that you have wanted for ages and could actually afford in the sales if you had been paid and weren't a financial failure." (What they lack in brevity they make up for in maliciousness.) 
And I haven't even begun to talk about the magazine and newspaper features about what to buy now to take you through autumn, or the best 20 dresses in the sales, or how to get the best sales bargain, or the myriad of other repetative and uninventive sales features that inevitably pop up both in print and online around now. I just can't. It's too painful.
On the plus side being poor has inspired a proper return to some of my more resourceful ways. I'm cooking more and taking packed lunches to work every single day, which is healthy. And even on my tiny budget I can still work on my never ending wardrobe evolution project.
I came back from the car boot sale with a brilliant pair of bright pink Topshop heels with a t-bar strap and a dove grey, buttery soft suede Nicole Farhi coat. On my way back, walking along the main road in Queen's Park with B, we spotted a piece of paper pinned on to a tree advertising a vintage sale in someone's hallway. Of course we had to go, and B, as is so often the way, knew the girl who was selling the clothes who allowed me to take away a black 1940's hat with the promise of paying her when I get paid. I have now given B an old display cabinet my mum was getting rid of and she will pay for the hat. I like this swapping of things, it feels useful.
I am also in the first stages of making a full skirt using some of the beautiful peachy-pink raw silk that I brought back from India and a 1950's pattern I bought off ebay aeons ago. I have cut all the pieces and retrieved my battered old sewing machine, a 16th birthday present, from my mum's house. Now I just need to draw the sewing guides onto the fabric (if I don't it will end up a very wonky skirt). But there are ten panels, a waistband and four tab pieces to do and I have hit a bit of a motivation wall. Hopefully this won't end up as just another project that ends up languishing in a corner reminding me that I never finish things...

An unhealthy relationship

Apologies for the radio silence, but I have been busy with life - moving house, a ridiculously demanding job and the small vestige of a social life I've managed to cling on to have taken up all my time.
Moving out of the parental home (years later than I should have) has been a bit of a wrench. Packing all my beautiful clothes into two giant market bags was a bit upsetting too, as is not having any proper clothing storage. I can not convey how much I hate having my carefully curated wardrobe hanging on cheap plastic Argos rails, but at least they are now unpacked.
Anyway, the new house is beautiful. The people we are sharing it with are very nice - let's call them M&S as those are their initials and it is also very apt given we have moved to the middle class nirvana of Queen's Park and there isn't a useful abbreviation for Farmer's Market. They have a lovely puppy and a haughty cat who I am determined to win over. Everything works in the kitchen and our bathroom is so pristine it looks like a hotel bathroom.
Of course, to live somewhere lovely costs money, and sacrifices will have to be made. So it's bye bye high street, bye bye Liberty and bye bye ebay. At least for a little while. Or maybe just until i can't bear it any longer.
Some people would say that my relationship with shopping is a little unhealthy. My mother certainly thinks so. She suggested that I just not buy any clothes for three months to rebalance my finances and if I couldn't do that then I had a serious problem. Perhaps I do. But it's not a problem that is hurting anyone, is it? And as long as I reign in my spending habits a bit, stick mainly to the chairty shops and car boot sales and only visit Liberty to drink tea and gaze at things longingly rather than impulse buy in the beauty department, we should be fine. And I won't want to bite anyone's head off or feel too miserable.
Sometimes mother just doesn't know best.

Perfect gift

Please note - if you have just broken up with someone or feel intensely resentful towards your partner for never buying anything nice for you, stop reading now as this post is mostly about how great my boyfriend has been recently.
Not that he isn't great anyway, but you know how after you've been together for a while things just get comfortable rather than exciting. You fall into a routine (in our case this mostly consisted of many evenings spent in Japanese restaurants, me getting up a good hour before him to go to work and then him getting resentful when I pass out in front of Family Guy and save my best shoes for going out to see EDF dj). But things in general have been pretty good. JFK dresses well, he smells good and he occasionally says nice things to me. He is supportive and snaps me out of feeling sorry for myself when I need it. He thinks I'm clever. Suffice to say, I love him rather a lot more than I thought was possible.
Over the last few months he has stood by me through my medical issues and made me feel better when I come home miserable from work.
Most recently though, we have both been having rather a rubbish time and it has really made us appreciate having each other all over again.
I get butterflies when we touch.
And then he goes and gives me this, which obviously I deserve for being generally great and paying for dinner rather often, but is never the less a perfect example of how great he is. Firstly, it's Alex Monroe, and I think we have established that I am a bit of a Monroe fan. Secondly it fit perfectly, which is pretty amazing because I never wear rings so how on earth he worked out my ring size I don't know. Thirdly, he can't really afford it which makes it even more of a grand gesture. And fourthly, isn't it just beautiful? I can't stop looking at my hands when I'm wearing it (although mine is silver and I wear it the other way round - is that bad luck?).

Alex Monroe Lucky Horseshoe Ring

For any male readers there are many lessons to be learnt from this story. A beautiful ring doesn't have to be saved for engagements and weddings and that presents are best when they come in a purple Liberty bag and outside of the usual present giving trilogy of birthday, anniversary and christmas. Although those are still important.

Mode En Module

Liberty is my favourite shop in the world. No really. Just seeing it's lovely windows makes me instantly feel comforted. It's pretty much my Tiffany's, my safe place, the place I go when I hate the world and just want to be surrounded by lovely things.

I love the beauty hall, the perfume room and the Frederic Malle sniffing booths, reminiscent of that Pierre Cardin, 1960's vision of space age design.

I love the jewellery room with its glass cabinets full of lovely things by Alex Monroe and Vivienne Westwood and others, surrounded by lovely leather bags and the Liberty of London room full of ridiculously overpriced and pointless things. I love the wooden ballustrades and the thick carpet and the mirrored changing rooms and the haberdashery and the smell and the tea room and the mens department. I could live without the scarf room, but nobody's perfect.

Most of the time I avoid the first and second floors though. Because this is where the clothes are, and the clothes make me sad. Because I can't afford them. 

But a few weeks ago I let myself wander around until I found the Acne rail where I saw The Dress. This Dress to be exact.

(Acne Wise 1 A/W 09)

It had to be mine, despite the price tag. Not that much for a dress on the grand scale of things, but more than I have ever spent. However, I usually feel guilt when I buy new things, and I felt no guilt after buying The Dress, which I take as a good sign. 

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I had a nice chat with the sales assistant who helped me buy The Dress. Her name is Ann Nelvig and she is a jewellery designer. She's been working part time at Liberty's while establishing her own jewellery collection, Mode En Module, which has just launched online with a rather nicely presented website. 

I am a big fan of monochrome, simple layouts and moody photography, and the web site ticks all those boxes. Plus Nelvig's zinc plated and leather designs are beautiful, tough and organic in an Ann Demeulemeester-esque manner and worth a gander for anyone that way inclined. The cluster bracelet and ring are my favourites. Just remember you saw them here first.