Louis Vuitton x Yayoi Kusama @ Selfridges, London

24 windows based on her poem ‘Love Forever’

Selfridges Wonder Room concept store

After closing hours: the coming together of the Selfridges installation

And your own little Kusama keepsake: Easy-peasy dotty DIY

Many thanks to Anna for the tour around LV x Kusama concept store in Selfridges Wonder Room, and Michelle for helping with photo no 16.

So word on the street was that Louis Vuitton erected a 6-metre-tall Kusama to guard the Selfridges main entrance clock, and seeing that Dr Google wasn’t answering my ‘why am I seeing spots everywhere’ questions (‘It’s just worms in your eyes’ is not helping, dude) I decided to pay Dotty-san a visit. There she was, five whole metres of that red dress (she was born in it, I swear) and a pair of door-sized black loafers casting shadows above my head. It was all too large for a simple Q&A session so I decided to take it up with the

more adequate version in window #23 of total 24 dotty windows. I enquired about her plans of world domination (starting with Instagram) and she stood solemnly answering with blinks (strict orders not to move during daytime apparently, all very Toy Story) – one blink for YES world domination, two for NO world domination – and just that one blink it was.

Make sure to pay her a visit at the LV x Kusama concept store in the Selfridges Wonder Room before the 19th October.

Some tips with the nail-do:

• The Kusama polkadot pattern doesn’t actually have a grid-based pattern, the dots are positioned quite randomly in varying sizes. Best if you start with the biggest size and go for a Marc Jacobs-y dot-spacing then fill the surroundings with smaller dots.
• Red-white is the classic combo, but the LV x Kusama collection features yellow-black, green-black and blue-black. The yellow-black skirt is one of my favourite pieces so I thought I’d put that as an accent (ring finger, right hand).
• When doing the dots, it’s best to get as little varnish on your brush as possible to avoid having a blob and waiting for it to never dry.

That’s all! Easy peasy, dot butt squeasy!

Tokyo, last day

Stella McCartney Falabella pouch

Rose-gold watch, GUESS.

Shoes, Alexander Wang via Vestiaire Collective. Watch, GUESS.

Floral top – Zara. Belt – LV via Vestiaire Collective. Shorts – DIY cropped black jeans from Zara. Sheer balloon skirt – ASOS. Shoes – Alexander Wang via Vestiaire Collective. Bag- Bottega Veneta.

Last day of Tokyo: 9,000 windows and berries for breakfast; ¥8,150 left in my pocket to buy presents for hubby, ¥500 left after a trip to Comme des Garcons, 20 minutes to meet a Japanese friend for coffee at the BVLGARI cafe in Shinjuku, 15 minutes to shop in a twelve-storey Uniqlo (impossibru), 5 new types of sushi tasted at lunch, 4 new favourite types of sushi, 2 minutes fitting the Prada flagship store designed by Herzog and de Meuron into sight while passing by in mini-bus, 1.5 cats seen in total (0.5 = tail and a spotted leg), 1 minute pondering what the Japanese word is for ‘STOP’  as the airport car passes by a Issey Miyake Pleats Please, 0% eagerness to enter homebound plane.

That about sums it up! Thank you Perrier-Jouët once again for a wonderful experience.

Uniqlooks August: One item, three looks – Ankle length trousers

Look 1:  Black silk trench coat, CK gift from mum. Leather crop-top old Topshop (bought in vintage store). Trousers, Uniqlo tuck tapered trousers. Shoes, Kurt Geiger Elsie. Mini-clutch, Falabella c/o Stella McCartney

Look 2: Jersey top, Zara. Trousers, Uniqlo tuck tapered trousers. Heels, Pierre Hardy for GAP. Bag, Bottega Veneta. Boyfriend watch, Sekonda. Glasses, YesStyle

Look 3: Cap, I Love Ugly. Silk top, Carin Wester via Heilee. Clutch, Kit’s Marc by Marc Jacobs pouch.  Trousers, Uniqlo tuck tapered trousers. Heels, ASOS Sienna

I would call this mostly ‘Uniqazillian ways to communicate impending toilet run’, but there’s a bit of ‘If I stand upright and look into the camera I WILL DIE  A SHAMED BLOGGERS DEATH‘  in the mix too. In fashion blogging bootcamp I was taught to renounce the habit that my mother so earnestly enforced in my blooming years – stand up straight, look into the camera and show a sliver of teeth – a tactic which usually ensured that the 24 (or 36, if on holiday/birthday party) snaps will be worth its money. For example, the Park family photo albums from 1990 to 2005 is just eyeballs. Then in 2008 I crawled through mud under barbed wire and struggled over walls made out of logs and to learn a new habit that will win us the Blogger badge, namely the ‘I think I need to pee’ pose (pretzel legs), ‘My lover in the sunset horizon’ pose, and ‘Is the the floor flirting with me’ pose – all three of which you can find above. Alternatively it’s a self confidence issue… one will never know. Here we have a pair of dusty pink tuck-tapered ankle-length trousers for the August instalment of Uniqlooks – the material is light and satin-y, which makes it a perfect summer-autumn transition piece for those countries that don’t have permanent PMS for a climate.

Shirt, Blood is the New Black. DIY cropped denim, Zara. Shoes, Isabel Marant Beketts. Sunnies, Jeepers Peepers (similar)

Now that the larger part of the Olympics is over and the sun doing its job properly for once this summer, none of us (i.e England) seem to really know what to complain about. We’re shuffling around the water cooler and downing one too many plastic cups of company water, making small talk over the new carpet and the receptionist’s new clogs. Welcome to CompLane & Co, we were having a fantastic year until the weather cleared up and by some miracle the tourists learnt to stand on the right (edit: of tube escalators). So I am now complaining about wind knocking down a stinky flower vase, which in all honestly was actually quite a lovely gust of wind laced with sweet summer grass that broke the sweltering heat, and the flowers – despite having lost all its petals in transit and having pooped in the vase – was actually a rare luxury in our lifeless flat. I’d love to think these little cycle trips down to Columbia Road flower market is turning into a weekly practice that makes me more of a woman (on paper, at least)… but let me hang up my bra and tell you this, once this sun packs up and goes away to Ibiza (or wherever it retreats usually), I will resume the position Captain-CEO of the unstoppable force that is CompLane & Co, reigning in the confines of my own pizzacrust-lined dungeon. I WILL BE BACK.

Azuma Makoto Atelier, Tokyo

No cello-tape, I promise

Distortion x Flowers

Fish and flowers

Wearing: Floral blouse, Zara. Balloon skirt, ASOS. Heels, Alexander Wang via Vestiaire Collective. DIY Cropped black jeans, Zara.

Ice cream and fresh flowers – two things that I would not mind living and breathing for the rest of my life. Did I read somewhere OREO’s do ice cream cookie sandwiches? I’m smearing peanut butter on my body right now, somebody run to the cornerstore. (Are they actually available in the UK?) Speaking of flowers, today a gust of wind passed through our window and knocked down a vase that had a slightly unhappy bunch of – quote, unquote – dahlias (these are what actual dahlias look like, if you’re curious), and it just happened to land square on a pile of fresh-laundered clothes. FRESHLY WASHED CLOTHES MAN. For your information, dahlia vase-water (slight past expiry date) smells of bum piss. I can swear like a truck driver, another thing I learned today. I may have not entirely sworn off flowers for now but I’m never buying pissin’ dahlias again, even ones with petals.

Anyhow, this is one of my favourite bits from the recent trip to Tokyo with Perrier-Jouët – visiting the artist & designer Azuma Makoto‘s atelier in Aoyama and having a go at flower arrangement into the wire-frame used in his collaboration with Perrier-Jouët on the new Belle Époque Florale bottle. MAN that was difficult, kind of like hanging fairy-lights on wire railing, really gimmicky fairy-lights with random green stick bits that don’t coil. Also, I had no idea there were this many types of foliage in floristry? I can probably name one… lettuce… but I don’t think that was available there, no. At least the session really allowed me to appreciate his work more – you must check out his blog, his work is otherworldly. I love the fact that he doesn’t just work with ready-grown flowers but likes to get right into the middle of life cycle challenging growth patterns (such beautiful hybrids) and reinventing synergy of plant and environment. One word, genius.