Heaven after a long work day

Day felt like it went on forever.  Work was crawling by and when I finally finished I caught the bus home and popped in to Starbucks right near my house.  A chai tea latte and panini with my favourite blogs was a instant pick me up!

Sunny Sunday in London

I finally had a Sunday off work to explore a little of London and the weather was beautiful, perfect for a cardigan.  A friend and I hit up Brick Lane in the East for a little vintage shopping and I nabbed a couple dresses, some lovely old black and white photographs and some horse riding show ribbons which are now proudly resting on my dresser.

Liverpool Street Station

Pointillism street art at its best 

I love the old East London buildings

Happy Friday!

Pin Interest

It's Friday!  Although it's not my weekend since I have to work on Saturday it is everyone else's so enjoy yours with lots of sweets and ice cream!

I'm Loving...

As Good as It Gets 1997

“…I might be the only one who appreciates how amazing you are in every single thing that you do, and … I watch them, wondering how they can watch you bring their food, and clear their tables and never get that they just met the greatest woman alive. And the fact that I get it makes me feel good, about me.”

—Melvin (Jack Nicholson) to Carol (Helen Hunt).

A few more close ups of the lovely Anne Hathaway

One Day with Anne Hathaway

Tonight was the European premiere for the movie One Day, based on the international best selling book by David Nicolls, and Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess graced the premiere in Westfield London.  I don't live too far away from Westfield so thought I would pop on by and see if I could get any decent photos of them!  Apart from the awkwardly tall guy standing right in front of me spraying everyone and anyone with flashes on his fancy camera, I was able to see quite well.  Although I do apologise to the woman in front of me whom I may have been pushed in to a few times, sorry!

Anne was incredibly beautiful and totally fierce.  A crowd beside me was pushing forward when she reached them and a small child was at the very front.  Anne raised her voice and asked everyone to stop pushing because of the child in the front.  Go Anne!

Watch the trailer on you tube below

How many can you recognise?

What an incredible video!  As you might know by previous posts I am fascinated with art history and the evolving video of 500 faces of women in history captivated my attention.  I was trying to figure how many I recognised from the portraits but completely lost count!  How did you go?

Stella Fall 2011

By now you would have seen Kate Winslet wearing a sheer spotted dress by Stella McCartney and I'm obsessed with it!  The cut, design and shape is flawless.  The colour blocked heels are beautiful!

Style.com

Style.com

Style.com

How do you do ol' chap?

The Chap Olympiad is the best 1940's event in London.  I went to the event last year on a whim and this year we bought tickets well in advance so we wouldn't miss out.  All the girls are dressed up with victory rolls and 40's dresses while the lads don their bowler hats and 3 piece suits.  There are men in Army uniforms looking quite dashing while swing dancers perform between matches of umbrella jousting and cucumber sandwich throwing contests.  This year the weather was against us and the turnout wasn't as large as last year but the day was still fabulous!

My 40's dress I bought in France for 7 Euros!

Jive!

Le Relais de Venise

Yum yum!

I clearly enjoyed my meal

Whatever it was, it was delicious!

I've just come home from one of the most amazing dinners I think I've ever had.  As a belated birthday celebration 2 friends took me out for dinner to Le Relais de Venise in London on Marylebone Lane.  We had to queue out the front for 30 mins although while we waited I opened one of many fabulous presents, more of which will come in a later post!  Once seated we were told of the set price menu and indulged in a bottle of red wine, moments later a delicious green salad with mustard dressing and walnuts appeared.  Then for our main it was steak and chips and although it doesn't sound like the most extravagant meal it was incredible!  The waitress asks how you like your meat cooked and a butter soft steak fillet arrives with an abundance of chips- delicious!  Dessert is as you would imagine... mouthwatering.

On my shopping list

Jacket from Topshop, Blouse from Vionnet

Which to choose?

I'm moving in to a new room in a new house for the rest of my time in London and since I haven't had a proper home for about 3 months now I am really really really looking forward to making the space a little more 'me'.  I'm contemplating new knobs for the chest of drawers.  I am totally in love with the knobs on ...love maegan's chest of drawers seen here.  What do you think of Anthropologies choices?

Have you heard?

Browsing Twitter the other night I came across this genius idea of @CondeElevator.  Yep, you read right... some fabulous person has created a twitter account to record the hilarious and unbelievable conversations had within the sacred walls of Vogue, namely the elevator!  Unfortunately, the creator has run scared but a job at Vogue would certainly trump a Twittter account.  So after only a few days the twitter account went silent.  Have a look anyway and pick your favourite. I couldn't choose betwen...

Girl 1: Oh man, I'm so tired, I was at the Rangers game late last night… Girl 2: Wait, really? Me too. Which one do YOU date?


Woman #1 to Woman #2, holding an omelet: "What's the occasion?" Woman #2: "...huh?" Woman #1: "I would need an occasion to eat that."


Summer Intern: My driver had SUCH a bad attitude. I was like, "don't complain to me, I didn't eat lunch either! You think I eat clothes?"

Topshop Melbourne... Look out!

The wait is finally over!  With the arrival of Zara in Sydney and then Melbourne earlier this year, Topshop is going to launch their brand in Melbourne!  Woooo!!  I'm originally from Melbourne and on the phone this morning to my Mum (who still lives there) she mentioned that in the newspaper there was an article about Topshop coming to Melbourne.  I was over the moon!  

Although, however fabulous it might be for the consumer that Topshop is landing in Australia I wonder what local retailers think of their new competition?  As a season behind America and Europe retail buyers frequently make buying trips to New York, London and Paris to source 'inspiration' for their own private brand labels.  As such they are able to translate the trends from overseas in to suitable products for the Australian market... with a 6 month lead time.  Now that Zara and Topshop (two of their largest sources of inspiration) have landed on their doorstep and will certainly air freight goods in to store how are they going to compete?

Check out the article in The Australia newspaper here.

Sequins divine

I saw this amazing Topshop t-shirt on Coco's Tea Party blog and stopped by Topshop in Oxford Circus today to try it on.  It was fabulous!  It's a pity they make the cuts of their clothes on the smaller side otherwise I would have spent 30 pounds on it, and probably many other things in there!

Topshop

Churchill and World War 2

Although not a very light topic to start the weekend with I headed in to Westminster today to visit the Churchill War Rooms and it was amazing!  The War rooms have been left as they were in the 1940's and prove to be one of the best things I have done while living in London.  The museum part of the bunker is incredibly informative and interactive and the actual war rooms used by Churchill and his staff are certainly eye opening to say the least.  At one point as we were entering the map room sirens sounded overhead as if to alert of a bombing air raid.  I was caught off guard and was surprised at the anxiety I felt when I heard the siren.  If you are ever in London put this on your list of must do things!

The man himself- Winston Churchill

His bowler cap became part of his image during the war

I also bought this fabulous poster in the CWR shop, they always put it at the end of the exhibition and get me at my weakest!  But I love it!

You can buy the poster here

Pride and Prejudice... yes please!

The photos speak for themselves but a little background for you... On Sunday it was a glorious warm day in London and my best friend and I decided to get out of town and rent a car somewhere cool.  And cool ended up being Basildon Park just outside of Reading where the 2005 movie Pride and Prejudice was filmed.  It was beautiful and to my extreme delight there was also an exhibition on at the time for Horrockses dress!  It was like Georgian beauty mixed with 1950's housewives in the English countryside.  My kind of ideal!

I'm totally in love with this skirt by H&M and am in the process of
 buying it in black too!  It makes me feel like a ballerina.