Bag – Coccinelle

With every passing season it seems more and more apparent that I approach Fashion Week dressing exactly like how I prepared for my GCSE’s: Revise the crap out of the first exam on schedule (history), and then sob through the rest, cramming two years’ worth of curriculum every night before exams while simultaneously replacing water with Red Bull in my circulatory system. Fast forward about ten years later – same drill, different liquids. If ya know what I mean.

Here’s sort of a play-by-play:

All photo assistance by Simon Schmidt.

Roadside Soma Bay is the postcard Egypt I have in my head as we near the end of the 45-minute transfer from the airport: sand, more sand and a camel-like creature in the distance that perhaps also is actually just a clump of sand. Abi, Carrie and I spill out onto the doorstep of La Résidence des Cascades, atop our bikinis-and-GoPro-laden luggage and realise, that we’ve possibly spent a little too long in that van (which was air-conditioned, if I’m not wrong) and ended up imagining one collective oasis.

Two nights later we have the exact same occurrence, except this time at the doorstep of Hotel Kempinski, two minutes down the Soma Bay strip on the shuttle and thirty minutes since a glorious buffet breakfast. Surely that isn’t enough time to cook up a heat-stroke? Here, the oasis is quite literal, complete with: a myriad of swimming pools, lagoons, bridges over lazy (swimmable!) rivers and a herd of gazelles by the watering hole (may or may not have been a water-acrobatics class…). It was clear, the five hotels of the Soma Bay  were gatekeepers of the amazing technicolour dream-coast, only accessible through a hotel lobby of sorts. The Kempinski ‘gate’ boasts a rather theatrical mix of Moorish fortress interiors with a tinge of influence from the East, with the unquestionable white Egyptian sun streaming through the dark wood lattice.

Dress and straw bag – H&M. Fedora – Hoss Intropia.

Sunglasses – Westward Leaning. Roll-on fragrance – Bjork & Berries. Phonecase – Casetify. Rings – Monica Vinader.

The rooms are sufficient, decorated with familiar time-honoured ‘luxury’, with mint-blue soft-furnishing that cools the overall orange tones of the wood and tiles. Abi and I unlatch the door that divides the two rooms and I use her terrace door as a shortcut to the beach for the next two days. The real luxury of Soma Bay, I feel, is the bespoke nature of setting the day’s pace at your will. A slow morning by Kempinski’s white beach followed by adrenalin-fuelled kite-surfing afternoon at The Kite House, and star-gazing at the Cascades golf course – all five-minute shuttle-rides away. In fact, water sports at Soma Bay is reason I’d return in the future, the waves reportedly best quality in the region. For now, I am content riding a strawberry margherita wave on the sky bar singing surfbort, surfbort while watching the experts flaunt at sea.

Great for: Couples. Fly & Flop with room for impromptu change in lifestyle (i.e couch potato to potential surfboard spud). Snorkelling in the Red Sea is interesting too, but watch out for sea urchins.

Park & Cube was a guest of Soma Bay, all views and opinions are my own.

Scarf worn as dress – Nazanin Rose Matin.

White Shirt – ASOS. Jeans – G-Star RAW (tight)

Jeans – G-Star RAW (wide)

If you happen follow me on my satellite rant-channels such as Twitter or Instagram you’ve been subject to the live stream moaning of all things related to the joy of moving homes. For this I apologise. If you don’t however, you 1) are making smart choices in life (or at least very refined taste in internet personalities) but also 2) missing out on a whole slew of embarrassing food choices that explain for mysterious stomach bulges that excite and disappoint my mother every other day around dinnertime. (“Kebab or baby?”)

For the past month I’ve been in nothing but jeans (these two G-Star RAW pairs, my current fav), occupying myself in packing, unpacking, and learning the art of leading a professional life in the most trashcan-like setting in the new house. But we have a marble fireplace so, we got that going for us, which is nice. So far we’ve managed to dig a path to and from the boxes containing beef jerky packets, and have sung a bit of Step in Time while vacuuming around the fireplace.

When it comes to moving uniform though, jeans all the way. Tight or wide, I just like knowing I can wipe my hands on my leg since I have no clue where we packed our towels. While I go look for some (it has now come to a point where a shower is definitely needed), you tell me whether you’re #TeamTight or Wide when it comes to jeans.

In collaboration with G-Star RAW #TightorWide. Editing P&C. Photo assistance by Simon Schmidt.

Silk scarf – MiH. Leather vest, trench, jeans – GStar RAW. Heels – Gianvito Rossi. Bag – Gucci. Watch – Karl Lagerfeld. Earcuff – CompletedWorks

Blouse & Bag – Chloe. Skirt – Karen Millen. Bracelet – Miansai. Watch – Larsson & Jennings

A video diary: the first day of London Fashion Week

As you can see, I make a brilliant habit of dropping my cool like a hot potato whenever a camera is shoved in my face. I mean, slow-dancing with food and suggesting a celebrity threesome is, really, any old day in the life of this insane chipmunk, but no one’s ever successfully recorded it so… yes, let’s report this cool lost. (Although, I suppose one can argue that I never had any cool to begin with.)

Weeks before the ‘fashion’ baton was handed over to London, I sat down with team Apartment, Shopstyle, and Harrods, in the plans of animating a typical London Fashion Week day for me. Many a scenario we had mapped out: breakfasts, fittings, shows, re-sees, melt-downs on account of London traffic and even a spot of work (!). But me being me, famously sporting a rather potent gravitational field of tomfoolery, on the actual day of the shoot we ended up rewriting the agenda (on the back of a Pret bag, with old eyeliner found at the bottom of my bag), and indulged all kinds of tangents… like running into the nearest McDonalds to use the loo and coming out with a box of McNuggets. In Balmain. (Shhh don’t tell Harrods) In the end though, I do think it turned out to be a more natural rendition of what a LFW day looks like every season after season: the mad conflict of schedules vs. spontaneity, with snacks and gossip at the Apartment in between it all.

Jacket – Balmain.

Jacket – Chloe . Bag – Marni. Stole – ASOS. Trousers – Zara. Shoes – Gianvito Rossi.

Photos by Kris Atomic, Simon Schmidt and Shini Park. In Collaboration with Shopstyle.

Python bucket bag – Bally ‘Paula’

“I love you a million cheese pizzas” is what I imagine my Valentine’s Day note would read, if I ever managed to live through this ‘holiday’ without wringing my eyeballs out. That message of course, represents everlasting, spell-binding, Disney-grade love. Because duh, pizza. Sprinkle in some love you a thousand glazed-donuts, tacos, cheese-fries…etc into the equation, and it means tonight we’re probably going to get it on. Alas, for the sake of professionalism we went for another line on this Valentine’s love-story we shot for Bally, but coincidentally one I hear every morning: Good morning, my love. (I however, cannot confirm whether my husband says this to his breakfast bowl or to me.)

Mens stripe wallet & USB Keychain – Bally

Joking aside, this year my husband and I mark our tenth year together, and as much as we love to hate on the commercial holidays, when I look back it had really been a decade of very happy unValentine’s days, with nine Valentine’s days in the midst. The timing is perfect, even if the very notion of the ‘holiday’ induces a mini barf, and if there ever was a brand out there that I would work with to ‘celebrate’ the actual day, it’d be Bally. Nonpretentious, gluten-free, grown up sort of love. A modern relationship that is all about good design and functionality. And a few pink bags strewn around just for the fun of it all because you know, glazed-donuts. So here’s my Bally love story, produced and photog-assisted by the two favourite boys that make my life easier (Brian and Ben), and composed by yours truly.

Cotton shirt and suede skirt – Bally RTW