STOP singing? no

O god. i really must stop singing. i can't, basically (sing well that is), but i also can't seem to stop. There i was, totally happy at the opening of the new Lalique Haviland shop on Conduit street on Wednesday night with the delectable Edwina and Amy, the former looking like a fashion forward and super sexy wicked witch of the west (minus the hat), the latter like a fabulously sleazed-up red riding hood; we were sipping champagne, nibbling Tuscan antipasti, ogling highbrow slebs like Henry Conway and Emma Noble, admiring the OTT twinkling jewels and art deco inspired china whilst being jostled by sloanes and still we couldn't resist the lure of Lucky Voice's new pop up shop just off Carnaby Street. isn't freeloading from one organisation enough in one night i ask you? apparently not. set up to promote the above home karaoke kit the pop up shop is like stepping into LV world with the LV screensavers on the shopfront's windows and the site's graphics made into a hanging mobile suspended from the ceiling. There's free karaoke there (29 Foubert's place, W1) till april 5th, so for god's sake go and stop me returning. no, i will never be in Banarama, no matter how much i want to be. the end.

The New V&A Bookshop

I am obsessed with the shop at the V&A. The postcards, the knick-knacks, the jewellery, the scarves... well, just about everything, especially the books. The V&A's in-house publications are amazing - by my bed i have Shocking Life, Elsa Schiaparelli's autobiography, From A to Biba, Barbara Hulaniki's autobiography and The Surreal Body: Fetish and Fashion, by GhislaineWood; all published by the V&A. So i was v excited to hear that they've extracted the books dotted around the museum shop and consolidated their collection in one, big, shiny, ubersleek Bookshop, thus also leaving more room for glorious exhibition ephemera on the mainshopfloor (BTW the Stephen Jones curated Hats exhibition at the mo means there some fabulous hats on sale). The bookshop's opening was on friday, and i went along to kick start my night of generally careering around town trying to do too much in one evening. It rocks: it's cool and bright and airy with a design minimalism that lets the books speak for themselves. I mainlined the books posters on sale... coming away with Vanessa Bell's illustration for the cover of Mrs Dalloway - which i've had my eye on ever since i featured it in my Christmas gift guide last year for work. actually, i subsequently worked out that even with my discount it would have worked out cheaper if i'd bought it online, but anyway, i really enjoyed carrying it into the various parties i went on to. not. especially as one was a birthday and there was an awkward moment when the birthday girl might have thought it was meant for her. that was fun. still all worth it in the end, now it's safely home and waiting for a good seeing to by the framers.

The Broken Hearts

Somewhat uncharacteristically for me, i decided to fuck 'sacred and relaxing' Sunday evening this week and instead went to a 'Pink' party at the Met bar - part of fashion week celebrations. in the main reception area was a vintage circus, while upstairs various suites were given over to showcasing the a/w 09 collections of young designers. it all sounded so promising, but... one candyfloss machine, some bunting, and a big board with a strong man painted on and the head cut out (for poking your own head through) does not a circus make. still, there were rather delicious fruity vodka cocktails and champagne, and lots of extraordinarily dressed people to gawp at, so i wasn't complaining too much. also, after a while, there was a very cute-but-cool performance act in the shape of Skip Theatre, three gamine girls with cropped hair, big smiles and eyelashes with white beads on the ends, wearing navy vintage swimming costumes, navy lycra leggings, small boaters and rubber rings round their waists, who skipped to the music in a kind of on-land synchronised swim. simple, and more than a little strange, but such fun and completely charming! and they got the crowd skipping too - jumping with them by running in and out of the rope. Genuis. what i loved loved loved even more than that, though, were the DJs, The Broken Hearts. two petite girls both in dressed in short, sexy harlequin Pierrot dresses, vertiginous heels and conical clown hats perched on top of perfect heart shaped bobs which framed their doll-like, porcelain faces with their long, long eye lashes and ruby red lips. but it certainly wasn't all pomp and show - the music was relentlessly brilliant, skipping from 1920s shimmies to jolly tea room dance music to jiving, to 1960s bopping to The Cure and back to swing - i had to keep breaking off my conversation and into song. I basically have an enormous girl crush on them and want them around me all the time to bring extra burlesquey glamour to my life and create a permanent, evolving playlist so i am forever perky and always singing. the end.