La Cerise sur le Gateau

La Cerise Sur le Gateau is a French linen company of which i am already a fan, but the photo on this this invitation to visit their trade stall at theMaison et Objet fair in Paris (which i received today) really made me smile on this grey, grizzly day. God, how i wish i was hanging upside down in a surreal cherry tree somewhere in the French countryside in the middle of a scorching summer's day.

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Some things i love on their site...

Velo Napkins

Alice cushion

Moustaches cushion

Surreal Liberty

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As part of The Barbican's exhibition The Surreal House, a labyrinthine edifice designed by architects Carmody Groarke intended to be a "mysterious dwelling infused with subjectivity and desire", Liberty have created some fabulously surreal windows (above). They're fabulous. my photography is less so, but you get the idea. (and you might just be able to make out that I'm wearing a rather fun new 1940s-inspired peach and black dress i found in the vintage shop Marshmallow Mountain yesterday {which i regularly frequent despite it being ridiculously over-priced and staffed by the surliest bitch ever}).

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Anyway, The Barbican's schedule of Surreal House events are rather super. Tonight is an evening curated by Le Gun, the East End art collective i am a fan of. should be good.

Apes in Aeroplanes

Several things i like about this debut 4 track EP from Marthas & Arthurs....

It's a little bit folksy, in a way that makes you smile and want to hold someone's hand who you like very much (more than they probably know), and maybe live your life as if filmed in tea-stained super8.

If i listen to it twice it gets me from my front door to work.

I like the spelling of Aeroplanes. Airplanes makes my skin crawl.

It's 100% free to download. yes. from here.

Vintage at Goodwood

Festivals where people wear heels are my kind of festivals. the scales first fell from my eyes about the sartorial prospects and potential of festivals when I went to Lost Vagueness (the burlesque, cabaret and period fashion inspired off-shoot of Glastonbury) about 5 years ago. Heels rather than wellingtons just make everything better. the end. and if there's a tea dancing tent where you can be spun round by a dashing gentleman in vintage army uniform, so much the better.

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Vintage at Goodwood was awash with vertiginous heels, not to mention beehives, 1940s curled hair, seamed tights, billowing skirts with colourful frou frou petticoats, nipped in waists and red lipstick; men decked out in three piece suits, trilbies, canes, and twirled moustaches; teddy boy clobber or mod-ish garb. 'Vintage' being a loose term, there were quite a few looks; it was bizarre - punk-inspired mohicans bobbing up and down to the music in front of mothers in 1950s prom dresses jiggling their babes in arms. but so much fun to both watch and be a part of.

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Everyone gathered round 1950s camping vans, war-era style tents serving cream teas, queued to have a period make-over at the beauty parlour, or skated round to 1980s tunes at the roller disco. As well as about 5 music stages, there were fashion shows and make do and mend sewing classes. In truth, on a sunny Sunday, it felt like a very jolly, very big fete. NB if you are driving from London, via Guilford and Petworth, it is the most glorious drive (and thus makes for a great day trip) - reminds you of why people used to 'go for a drive'. if you had a vintage car it'd be heaven. I'm seriosly considering going down for Goodwood revival in September, for the vintage car racing.

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Highlights for me were twofold. the first was listening to The Puppini Sisters; their coquettishly zesty cover versions of songs, from Tu Vuo Fa Americano to Beyonce's Crazy in Love are both sparklingly witty, brilliant adaptations and bursting with fruit flavour (of the flirty, teasing variety). I've been a fan since they released their first album about 4 years ago and live they were a million times better. You want to tap your foot, then jig about, then dance, then dance with someone - and be spun around vigirously, and then perhaps thrown in the air and caught. One of my favourite songs has to be Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights. amazing.

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Lastly, there was the shopping. hours i could have spent trawling through the tents of vintage clothes. and i did, eventually coming away having frittered away most of my month's salary but having several jaw-dropping finds... including a floor length, strapless 1950s taffeta pale grey ballgown - the tight corseted top drops into a gorgeously flowing, twirl-me-about-on-the-dance-floor full skirt. heaven.

Moustache Chronicles

Apparently I am not unique in being a Beatrice who loves guys with moustaches... see The Moustache Chronicles. SHIT.

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PS this 'interest' in moustaches is most definitely of cultural significance to me, rather than a slightly pervy obsession, in case you were wondering.

PPS the fact that i was alerted to this blog by someone who once had a moustache, and whom i tried to sexually assault during that (brief) period, is a not insignificant fact, i feel. one that may counter the above statement, perhaps.

Bookshelf Porn

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I have fallen HEAD OVER HEELS in love with a blog... Bookshelf Porn; images of piles and piles, row upon row of books - in shops, houses, on the streets, as art installations, as pictures... anyone who has been into my flat will understand why i love it so much. below are a few pics from the site. Above is my personal favourite image of books; it's a photo taken by my friend Jo, of a picture she saw for sale in a gallery, and which she thought I'd like (correct) and which takes the blog's title perhaps a little too literally. Actually, probably not literally ENOUGH, but illustrates how much i was predisposed, nay preconditioned to love this blog.
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I love Tom. and Moustaches.

Hotter than hot lifelong crush

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I spent a not inconsiderable amount of time at Field Day, running around with a fake moustache on, thanks to a spectacular Pin-the-Moustache-on-Tom Selleck stall run by the more-than-fantastic Romy Westwood. Mmmm.

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Idiot, you may think. well, NO. from this day on i am never going to a festival WITHOUT a fake moustache glued to my upper lip (Casanova was the variety, FYI). Friends lost: 0. Friends made: 10,000. including a ridiculously high number of hot men. that's all I'm saying. cleavage on display and a fake moustache seems to tick a lot of men's boxes. who knew?

A moustachioed Romy and Laura
moustachioed moi (and on crack, clearly).

The Prince of Homburg

There was a moment, after we read the first few paragraphs of The Prince of Homburg programme, when we seriously considered getting the fuck out of the Donmar and nipping round the corner to the newly opened Jamie's Italian on Upper St Martin's Lane. Something to do with Heinrich von Kleist committing suicide shortly after writing it, aged 34, possibly, or it being about the Prussian Cavalry and the battle between dreams and the rigid strictures of order; ambition and enthusiasm clashing with institution and formality.
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But THANK GOD WE DIDN'T because it was utterly, unexpectedly, captivating and brilliant. Sure it's about all those things, but it's such a punchy story, dynamically delivered and swiftly dealt with - there's no posturing, drawn out scenes, long tedious soliloquies or anything i basically thought i was going to have to endure whilst reading the bumph with bug-eyed horror. All the performances were smart, assured and sparky - the dialogue nippy, witty, incisive, direct. the play literally sped from beginning to end with the pace of a match or game - the prize being the Prince of Homburg's life which hangs in the balance as punishment after his overexcited, preemptive charge during battle. Sounds boring? It's NOT. strange, but true.