Plum, orange and almond cake slice at CafeAnd

Wearing: Coat – ASOS. Top – Zara. Trousers – Uniqlo. Shoes – Kurt Geiger. Pouch – Kurt Geiger. Thank you Charlie for helping with the photos!

Once you start working from home and the passing days have absolutely no definition other than when the Nutella runs out (every.single.day.yo), outings, even ones where you sit alone in a cafe and order one cake after the other, feels like a big deal. To start with, only when I smear some foundation on my Walking-Dead face and draw on some eyes a hope is rekindled, a small hope that I belong in civilization of some form or another. Sometimes I go out in just an eyeliner and some baggy jeans, because that’s already a step up from whatever I’ve been pickling in the past few days. But then of course I catch a glimpse of myself in a shop window looking like a half-baked pie, or a Transformer that transformed only half-way and basically still looks like a pickup-truck with arms. At least remember to draw some eyebrows, I tell myself. I guess what I’m trying to say, is that it feels good to venture down somewhere that’s a few more bus-stops away from the usual, to dress up a little, and to reach a little further into the closet for exotic-looking things like these ridiculously electric hues of blue that are usually just incompatible with the trip to the Turkish to get more Nutella and Oreos. Unless I don’t have the right change and I need to smuggle out a bag of Oreo’s (that also happens to be blue). I kid. Don’t steal, kids.

Jacket – Charlie May SS13 (similar here). Top – (Charlie’s) Alexander Wang. Jeans – Zara. Shoes – Thakoon. Sunglasses – Carrera via Sunglasses Shop. Bar necklace – Kirsten Goss. Skull necklace – Maria Nilsdotter; Thank you Charlie for the snapss!

I made a new friend today, so now I have FOUR friends in total, if I count my mother. Yay. Kobi is my bestest friend though, I’m going to make him a super special friendship bracelet out of spaghetti and string cheese, and he’ll chew my hair back when I hurl into the toilet after a good night out. No, I’d been nagging Charlie (Kobi’s hot day-time nanny) about meeting him ever since he was a wee puppy, and nine whole months later I got out of my PJs and finally paid her a visit. Well, that and the chance to fondle a rail full of serious sexiness from all the Charlie May collections – this amazing blush leather jacket, case in point. I also got to borrow the best accessory, like ever, despite the fact that it kept running after dandelions… so all-in-all, I must say that I’m pretty damn chuffed about this post.

The 2013 London Tweed Run

Photo by Yu Fujiwara of Tokyobike

Time for tea!

Tweed blazer – Vintage Gerry Weber, Skirt – ASOS. Floral shirt – Zara. Shoes – Topshop. Bag – Warehouse. Bike – Tokyobike. Thank you Kit for the shots of moi!

One does not simply partake in the Tweed Run among 499 others and not come home with 49,999 photos of tweeded butts, as Boromir might say.

We spilled out into the streets, ushered by the marshals – in no particular order but close enough to each other to hold hands. Mobile boomboxes in bike baskets sang the 50’s, conversations budded up here and there while turning corners. Girls rode in heels, hands-free for some boys, and we bloggers cycled with our elbows while trying to capture every moment… At times it felt like learning to cycle all over again – half scooting, half balancing with momentum – except here when you topple over sideways you take about twenty people down with you. Every single head turned on the streets, traffic stopped, and windows opened in cheer – how exhilarating! So this is what it feels like to be a politician, or blonde. We rode through Marylebone, Oxford Circus, Saville Row, Piccadilly, Whitehall, Westminster… all the postcards of London, then ended up in Lincoln’s Inn Fields just behind Holborn for afternoon tea; then up to King’s Cross to finish the day at a pub, at which point England did what England does best and rained on a parade. Only literally, though.

Many thanks to Tokyobike once again for this wonderful experience! Check out part 1 for more tweed, less buttz.

Complexion vs. colour, with Guerlain Terracotta 4 Seasons Bronzer

Hover over products for details

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Wearing: Top & skirt – Zara. Guerlain Terracotta 4 Seasons bronzer. Terracotta Kabuki brush. Parure de Lumiere fluid foundation. Clis d’Enfer Maxi Lash Mascara. Rouge Shine Automatique Lipstick. Photos with help from Kit!

It’s hard to explain – especially how the sun is increasingly sexy (and it knows it) by day – that tanning is on the last of my beauty to-do list this summer. It seems ungrateful, doesn’t it, like declaring a water-diet while your mother pulls out a lasagna from the oven. I’m pretty sure you have/are that one friend from the Far East, who will walk in the shade and always carry a sun cream with SPF numbers appropriate for Count Dracula to play ball at the beach. And for those baffled few, it’s the Asian (oriental, to be precise) age-old understanding of beauty – the fairer your skin, the higher up the class you’re perceived to be, while tanned skin suggested a rice-paddy lifestyle. Think geisha, and clowns. Asian clowns are basically gods, yeah? My personal makeup resumée screams fairer: better ever since my first foundation purchase, and absolutely did not include bronzers until only recently. But as I get older I’m coming to understand, that while the whole theory is not all a load of bullpoop, it should be taught to people that it’s the complexion/glow of the skin that puts you on any sort of caste system. And if it doesn’t come out naturally (if you are what you eat), a good bronzer is the best tool to achieve this look. I tend to go with a palette that doesn’t look like it’s been in the oven for too long, always one with a slice of pink in the mix like the Guerlain Terracotta 4-seasons bronzer, which come in a six different intensities (I’m wearing Nude 00). For this little collaboration with Guerlain, we shot these photos with a general gold/brown/bronzy feel, to give the old Asian belief the finger, I suppose.

Coat – Zara (similar here). Bag – 3.1 Phillip Lim Pashli. Skirt – ASOS. Shoes – Vintage Salvatore Ferragamo. Glasses – YesStyle. Sweater – YesStyle. Shirt – Zara.

Apart from falling asleep everywhere and routinely waking up in zone 5 thanks to some heavy-duty anti-histamines I’ve been taking lately, not much else is up. I tell ya, those hotdang things apparently knock out a grown man within 15 minutes and yet I find myself fondling my phone at 4am with crusty eyes, scrolling the Instagram feed like all life mattered and eventually falling back asleep after the fiftieth cherry blossom pic. But during the day it’d kick in when I’m a least bit idle and then my eyelids get as heavy than the damn Pashli bag and I’m desperately asking twitter whether there’s anywhere to nap in the West end. (Quo Vadis on Dean Street, thank you Sophie.) I know I eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey every other day and I guess in essence that makes me chunkier than a ‘grown man’ but COME ON I CAN’T BE FALLING ASLEEP WHILE QUEUING FOR THE ATM.