hello from london [part thirty-eight]

hello friends

how are you? i am well. there is much to tell you. where to start?

i really liked our show for london fashion week [you can watch it here]. wakako played me the show music a few days before and i got excited the opening track is from the life aquatic with steve zissou. i asked her if that is one of her favourite films and she shrugged, she just likes the music.

i love the aquamarine dot top worn underneath this check and crest print dress. when the model did her turn and started stalking back, the split sleeves took my breath away [not seen here]. this look just keeps on giving! i love it! my guests at the show were bahbak [i invited him last season], serena, and chris [my new beau, yes, that is right]. after the show chris [his first] said he felt like he was in sex and the city. my little boss' daughter [aged three, nearly four] asked her father "are they real peoples?" referring to the models. oh, fashion! no proper show gossip, sorry.

what else? oh yes, paris. i hope my big boss is not reading this. he surprised me in the paris showroom by making reference to the polaroid project from 2005. if he can find that, he can find this. paris was such a surreal experience. we woke up at 3.30am on a thursday morning to catch the 5.20am eurostar. that pretty much set the tone for the trip. it felt like time raced ahead and my brain was doing its best to keep up. sometimes i did not know which day it was. it was a major head spin but having said that, we worked all day [talking customers through the range and collecting their orders, you know, selling] and ate and drank and danced all night on company pounds. n i c e. on our first night we went out to celebrate alexis' birthday and ended up at cafe de flore drinking with sophie calle [mark's friend], sitting near wes anderson [sophie's friend] who was with lou dillon, and walking past karl lagerfeld who was sitting outside. i was so starstruck, i did not know where to look.

the absolute highlight of the entire trip was when annie, my old boss from poepke, came in for an appointment.

i was so homesick i wanted to cry when she left but annie stayed for more than an hour chatting with mark and i so i totes got a decent fix. i am not saying this because i am biased or anything but of all our customers i thought annie made the best selection. she chose print heavy pieces that reflect the true nature of e k. i was so proud of her if that makes sense. sydney friends, you are so in for a treat come february. okay so it will be summertime and you will all be beachside and as if that is not exciting enough but the e k range will be instore and colour exploding all over itself. i asked mark if he will fly me home so i can visual merchandise the poepke window. he thinks i am joking but secretly i am not.

other things that happened in paris, umm. on a night out with esme's friend who works for jean-charles de castelbajac, he invited us back to his hotel room to try on some de castelbajac's dresses. i know what you are thinking but it was not like that at all.

this is alexis. how amazing is the michael jackson dress? he said we were only one of twenty people who will ever try it on.

here i am looking like an expensive chicken.

after, we all pile into a taxi and head to le baron for a dance. i hit on a ridiculously hot french girl [for the first time in a very long time] with little luck and alexis is plied with free drinks and makes out with a french boy. some people have all the luck. sigh. i am not really sore because...

we officially finished work in paris on thursday october 8th but alexis and i decided to stay on [separately] for the weekend. chris came down on the eurostar on friday night. we were both seriously giddy with excitement. i take him out to dinner and we go for drinks at le perle in the marais. all week i have been pocketing these absolut vodka tumblers from le perle. i like the blue type on the front of the tumbler. i was hoping for a set of four but only walked away with three. we visit the lourve, walk through the tuileries [a public park behind the lourve], stand on the champs elysees roundabout, visit two other galleries [one with a maison martin margiela exhibition, the other showed guy bourdin films], and eat candle-lit dinners with a bottle of the house red.

the eiffel tower and i.

so, chris. you do not know much about him. he is english, a motion graphics designer, and used to work with my friend jonathon. this will be the first time jon has been told about this [he lives in sydney now, you lucky people]. surprise, jon! we went on two dates in february this year before chris backs off and tells me he only wants to be friends. okay, no probs. we date other people in the following seven months while maintaining an easy friendship. then last month when we are both properly single, he surprises me with a "you know, i like you" at the petit mal #3 launch. oh. really? the penny drops. he never lets me pay for anything [which i resist], he always walks me home after a night out, when we went for a swim at hampstead heath last summer he was a complete gentleman, and the week before his declaration he gave me a mix cd full of subliminal messages. i thought we were only friends! anyway, here we are, dating. sometimes if the light is right, he looks like brad pitt, but not very often.

what else? i had a day off yesterday and c planned the best adventure day ever. we had lunch at the whitecross street market, it is only open on weekdays. when edwina was here [you know her, she used to work at incu] she gushed about the burritos from whitecross and how she would get one everyday. sure, how good can a vegetarian burrito be? well, let me tell you, it was truly amazing. please come visit me just so i can take you and watch your face when you take the first bite? if i was an office worker around there, i would save on public transport fares and just roll to and from work because i would be that fat.

we are eating our burritos on park benches with a group on pigeons doing whatever it is they do on the patch of grass in front of us. chris comes up with this gem

"what makes their head do that? is it connected to their legs?"

we went to see the anish kapoor exhibition at the royal academy of arts. are you bored yet? i just realised the length of this update. okay just quickly, i really enjoyed the anish kapoor show. i liked the scale of his works, their simplicity and inherent genius. i walked past yoko ono and chris laughed when he saw my awestruck face.

this is 'shooting into the corner'. a canon shoots a wax canon ball into the next room every twenty minutes.

we had hot beverages at the wolseley [a cappuccino for him, a hot chocolate for me] after and then went to dinner in the root master [a big red bus converted into a vegan restaurant just off brick lane]. i rolled into bed after that. it was the best day.

it is saturday night and i am in bed typing to you. after this i am going to start a big felt owl for c's future niece or nephew [due in december]. i guess i could be doing something more, you know, fun but this is my first night in since paris. crazy times!

also i see florence and the machine [or flo mac as some people call her here] is playing st jerome's laneway festival in sydney come january. you should see her if you can, that lady can sing. and the xx! oh my, they are my most favourite band in the world right now. die. i went to see the big pink the other night. i like them, maybe you will too? you know how teenage boys like the work of john donne when they are in high school because he is a bit dark and writes about love? i think those same boys like the big pink for the same reason. their debut album is about girls and not being in love with them. uh-huh. next week we are seeing phoenix and then the dirty three in december. i am back to paying to see bands but the trade-off is not so bad.

love

o

hello from london [part thirty-four]

hello friends

boys, meh.

one, r is sending me the most confused messages, it is really annoying and i do not want to talk to him for a few days. we braved the rain on thursday night to see bat for lashes. at the bar i hear "olivia! olivia!" who is that? it is luke of romance was born fame. it was such a pleasant surprise to see anna and luke and at a bat for lashes show of all places. caught in the rain, we all race to the nearest tesco [chain supermarket] and fashion ourselves knock-off martin margiela jackets with garbage bags.

london is where it is all happening, kids.

r and i are stuck with two choices, have a huffy time under buckets of rain or shrug it off and enjoy ourselves. we chose the later. bat for lashes played an amazing show, she sounds even better [if possible] than on the album. she wore a paneled bodysuit with fringed arms which she made effective use of. everyone in the crowd at one point or another wanted to have her babies. r and i held hands during one of her songs and when we rushed through the onslaught of rain to the tube station, it was hand in hand. why? i had dinner with him and two other friends on sunday night and he squeezed my knees under the table, trapping them between his, making eyes all the while. tease! he is a recent homeowner and hosting a painting party in two weeks time and he asked me if i will accompany him to the paint shop to choose colours. how domestic! you know when you like someone and you think their every action and word uttered is dripping with hidden meaning and complicated messages of undying love? you will be pleased to know i am not falling for that old chestnut and keeping ice cool about things. but we just had a fight [on facebook chat!] and now i am so over him.

is this a bit too intimate? you all joined the honourary girlfriends club a long time ago.

so, umm, two, i am dating a boy i met a few months back. are you all rolling your eyes and having a chuckle? can someone draw up a legal document stating men will leave me alone for the next few months? this boy, ben, is thirty [a good start, more man than boy], tall, skinny, and nerdy in a bookish manner. he is not east london cool like rodrigo, more utterly charming in a young english gentleman by the seaside way. it is too early to know anything, we are going on our second date tomorrow to a talk on the velvet underground. if i can tell anything, it is this thing with ben will simmer for a long time and that is what i want. maybe it is a case of once bitten, twice shy?

do you want to hear some proper news?

three, mark likes to randomly congratulate me for the money i make from the online store and our most recent sample sale. we had a studio meeting today where he got huffy about the lack of progress on his online bric-a-brac store [i am supposed to be working on that] but at the end of the meeting he throws in a “you are doing a phenomenal job!” yes ok thanks. at the end of the day i ventured over to his office to ask him something but i sort of hid behind a clothing rail to gauge whether or not he was busy. he looks up, sees me hiding but looking at him, laughs and calls me a weirdo. i believe we bonded in that moment.

four, e k are in a position to open a pop-up store and guess who mark asked to run it. uh-huh. can you imagine? my own pet project. i am so excited. ever since working at poepke, i have always wanted to run a store. i can see it already: a narrow but long space, print-heavy interior, wooden shelves merchandised with knitwear and knic knacs galore, the rails a colour explosion, print curtains in the change rooms. die.

some general news?

five, poor english people do not know what summer is. they are deprived! no wonder so many britons overstay their visas in sydney. it is supposed to be summer right now but the weather is overcast, rainy, and windy. the sun can only manage low twenties. why?

six, you are familiar with peter jensen? he had a sample sale last week. i went and promptly parted with money for a long stripey button-down top and mustard yellow mac. it is sample sale season here, ching ching!

seven, maybe i do not work for a trends forecast company or anything like that but word on my street is this: roll-your-own-vietnamese-rice-paper-rolls and playing backgammon are hot right now. you heard it here first, you will probably read about it in i-D magazine next month.

eight, i miss you.

love
o