Style Bubble

Not So Tough

I was pretty much ready to run around on the streets wearing nothing but an elongated bra and a pair of silk shorts after seeing Clare Tough's S/S 10 collection.  It would have been something like a crazy spoof of a Lenor advert or something.  Me waddling around (waddling being the operative word post Hong Kong food binging...) in a delicate bra and shorties through a green green meadow (note of the TWO greens) could only have been induced by the prettiness that I saw at the press day.

On top of her intepretation of knits for the summer, an accomplishment that many knitwear designers are overcoming with much competence, she's also expanded her range of underwear aka pretty delicate things that you would want to gratuitously show off as more than just underwear. 

Tough had me fantasising about Wham!-esque cabin fires, chunky knits and undewear underneath last season (to complete the cliche, I think there might have been a box of Ferrero Rocher somewhere in the picture) and quite rightly the knits are still there for S/S 10 albeit lighter and sheerer with an emphasis on embroidery and mosaic beading to add weight...

...to the sheerness of the knits... here's an instance where I'd be inclined NOT to layer away and to just let the light flood in through the sheer knit.

As well as plays with opacity, Tough has created knitwear that as opposed to keeping one warm, uses the chunky yarn as an embellishment in itself with this draped rope motif...

... then to balance out the abundance of prettiness in this collection of Lenor ad-ready frolics, some very thin and soft leather strips have been woven together for these skirts and short shorts...

Outed and Outlets

Most people here know that I'm a sample sale whore... and I don't mean to throw that w word in a casual kind of way.  If there's an imperative sample sale on (some good uns' coming up in London...Nicholas Kirkwood and Emma Cook woot woot... ), I'll be there combing through meticulously and obsessively. 

Sadly the word 'outlet' doesn't instill the same kind of excitement.  This is supremely silly but it makes complete sense to me... the fact that a sample sale is usually restricted by date and time, in my head, whatever I end up buying feels a lot more special (even if it is a 10-season old scraggy cardi...), and so the idea of a permanent sale at an 'outlet' doesn't really get my shopper's blood rushing. 

Therefore I was a bit doubtful as to whether I'd find anything at Ap Lei Chau's Horizon Plaza which houses Lane Crawford, Joyce, I.T.'s outlets (there are several I.T. outlets about and in general, I'd be surprised if someone shopping in Hong Kong DIDN'T stumble into something I.T. related/owned) and now a Marni outlet too.  I had heard good things about it but given its slightly far out location, I had never been before and as we were pulling up, the coach loads of tourists getting off to get in on the outlet action, made me even more dubious. 

A slap on the wrist is in order because just at Joyce's outlet alone, my eyes were welling up with the amount of bargains.  I'm the kind of person that gets excited by the reductions of items even if the final price is still unaffordable and Joyce makes this particularly accute as they list all the prices the item has gone through season to season.  I was lusting after a number of Christopher Kane giant pailette and crushed velvet items, a Rick Owens jacket, some Sacai knitwear and a Proenza Schouler coat and nearly walked away with a lilac Comme des Garcons blazer but ended up empty handed.  Yet I was strangely satisfied with my empty hands as I could tick off Horizon Plaza as a place to go when I am finally feeling flush (sadly this trip has fallen just before Christmas when friends and family come before my own superficial needs...).

I fared a wee better at Lane Crawford (it's hard to list WHO they stock but rather it's better to eliminate who they DON'T have... ) and a Givenchy ruffled cropped cardigan and a VPL dress went into the basket (does anyone else put stuff in baskets only to do a shop-circuit and put it back down?) but in the end, it was this pair of bargainous Bruno Frisoni platform sandals with an abundance of grosgrain ribbon and gold ring tie-ups that finally made it to checkout at the price of HKD650 (around GBP58) down from HKD7000. 

I could well have tipped the Xmas funds away in Horizon, but it's actually knowing that this place is pretty much permanently there that left me feeling more than happy.  I'll be back, ya?

On another Hong Kong discounting note, I must thank the few readers who have been leaving/sending me tips even though I didn't ask for any.  Mee and Gee in Central (on Li Yuen Street West in Central... think there's one in Mong Kok too) was a pretty rad suggestion.  It's a cross between a vintage and deadstock store and everything is dirt cheap, with all wares being under HKD100 (GBP8) and averaging at about 3 quid an item.  This is going to be the oddest excuse I'll give for not coming away with anything but bear with me.  Sadly, the things that I was interested in were the deadstock 70s printed shirt dresses and skirts from Japan but...

... and here goes...

...the night before I had stayed up late to watch at TVB series that is a bit like the Cantonese version of Cold Case/CSI where they kept recalling the past of a serial murderer/rapist and one lady was lying dead on an old lino floor wearing a chintzy 70s printed shirt dress, with eyes rolling back into the head.  The resembance to the stuff in Mee and Gee was a little close what with my awful sleeping patterns and low tolerance for erm... scary dead eyes.  So it was this mental image that prevented me from stuffing my wardrobe with more skirts to add to the 278+ inventory.

Me thinks I've waffled on about NOT shopping but the key point to take away is that Horizon Plaza and Mee & Gee get the thumbs up.  : ) - a symbol that everyone can understand... bah... who needs copious amounts of text anyway!     

Sample This

>> So I come home all poor, broke and happy and what do I find?  A deluge of sample sale notices that starts this weekend and runs all the way through to mid-December...Christmas shopping...pah...I'm now having to rejig some funds to make way for these sales. 

Urban Junkies will no doubt have put most savvy Londoners in the know but I've posted a few more good uns' too...

 

*** Red By Wolves, a London-based shoe label I'm rather enamoured with and White Trumpet are doing a joint sample sale this weekend (mens and womens shoes/womens clothes)

Date: Saturday 28th November - Sunday 29th November
Time: 12:00 PM - 18:00 PM
Venue: 9 Long Street Studios, Unit 1A, London E2 8HN

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Nicholas has also sent over some sneak peek preview styles that will be on sale - anything from A/W 09 back to A/W 08 it seems...

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>> Since I'm confined to one pic posting and not much else due to some Typepad/ISP issues (coming home tonight... I miss you Be There Broadband!!!), I thought I'd share this pic I snapped from Elle Girl Korea. I've picked up a ton of mags in HK, sending my baggage limit way over (I lurve pleading with air hostesses to let that extra 3 kilos fly...). Seeing as I recall quite a few readers missing British Elle Girl whenever discussions of mags have been brought up, I thought it was quite funny that in Elle Girl Korea, there's an oh-so-done quintessentially English editorial complete with cottages, cobbled streets, cheese shops, tartan, lots of headgear and a skipping English gal (Morwenna Lytton Cobbold).

Blocked and denied by some horrid ISP in Hong Kong. Either that or Typepad is trying to lay the blame on the ISP... apologies for posting delays!

Joy to the World

I didn't think I'd be updating purchases throughout my holiday but seeing as I haven't had the time to sit down, properly research and write anything informative I guess this will have to suffice until I get back. 

I kind of feel like I'm writing a lot of drivel when it comes to a post about the store Joyce in Hong Kong.  Me talking about Joyce in Hong Kong is kind of like the equivalent of talking about Dover Street Market in London or colette in Paris.  It's obvious, established and pretty much textbook (or tourbook in this case...).  Curiously though, I had only ever been to the one in Central probably because whenever I had been in Hong Kong previously, I felt a little bit like a goof walking into sheeny shiny boutiques with my battered up canvas tote bag.  So on my first trip to the branch in Admiralty Pacific Place, I was there to first and foremost take some images of Anthony Vaccarello's collection which is currently exhibiting there (they will be stocking his collection come January!)... as he wasn't able to see it himself...

...secondly, I also managed to peer at some of the other exhibits like the On Aura Vout Tu installation which is an amalgamation of animal pop and haute couture frocks as best as I can see...

...thirdly, I got to really rifle through their stock which is FAR more all-encompasing than I had imagined... a mix of European, American and Japanese... with showpieces and wearables in all collections, I was quietly impressed with the selection.  Oddly enough I found pieces from British labels like Richard Nicoll, House of Holland and Mary Katrantzou that I hadn't seen in shops yet in London.  Just a few pickings from the tempting mix included Camilla Skovgaard, Ohne Titel and Miharayasuhiro. 

Dress33.  The rose flower print reminds me of the cover of this old vinyl photo album that had all my baby pics in it (I used to leaf through my baby pics and wonder why the heck why I was so cute as a baby but somehow turned out like such a turd ...teen angst at its best, eh).  Its cropped shape is making it ripe for all that predictable jazz I love... layering, mixed prints, shiny fabrics etc... so even with my limited travel wardrobe I've found a way of ripping right into my new purchase straight away.

Sweet Mieke

>> I know this is completely unrelated and chronologically confusing given that I'm in Hong Kong and these pictures were taken a few months back in Antwerp but they've been sitting on my memory card for a while and are frankly pissing me off so I'm offloading them even if they aren't necessarily fashion-related.  This is proof though that I do read all comments and emails and whilst I can't reply to each one, I'm heeding your words and lodging them in my brain.  A reader recommended Mieke Willems in Antwerp when I said I was going and despite the fact that I've rarely mentioned my taste in gifts, interiors, nick-nacks etc etc, she somehow got it spot on that I'd love Mielke...

Mieke Willems sells stationery, handmade wares, all things slightly naive (speaking of which, I think Tommy of Notes by Naive would LOVE this store...) and for want of a better word, charming, all of which is supported by an equally 'charming' (why is this word so defunct and parochial sounding?) e-store and blog.  I spent an overabundance of time in this store and kind of went off the 'fashion' track we were supposed to be on when we were in Antwerp.  Escape is sweet when cardboard, cut-outs and freshly sharpened pencils are involved. 

>> FYI - Typepad has decided to take a holiday too and is not letting me compose a post... can only leave a short note here to say I'm not being lazy but that Typepad is getting on my goat!

**EDIT** Ok, so either Typepad very QUICKLY heard my pleas or sitting in Mix Salad/Smoothies cafe using their wifi is helping... either way, I'm a-posting now...with an interesting beverage to spur me on...

Moshing for Moschino

After my little prewarning to Steve that vintage clothes are a scarcity in Hong Kong, what was the first thing I bought in Hong Kong?  In probably what is the most organised charity shop I've come across ever, that seemed to contain a lot of designer cast-aways and factory seconds, in Miramar Plaza in Tsim Tsai Tsui I found this Moschino Cheap and Chic blazer that has only fired up my rediscovery of my love for Moschino. 

It kind of all started at the S/S 10 press day where many archive pieces had been re-invigorated and reproduced to mix in seamlessly with the mainline collection.  The slightly cheesy gold hardware, the in yer face colour palette and the tongue in cheek references are the things that initially made me keep on consistently adding the word 'Moschino' to my eBay search list (resulting in a few Cheap and Chic pieces that I still get wear out of...).

How could these ickle jacket pockets not make me swoon?

If you are a firm believer in feet 'popping' (a very very lame Princess Diaries reference...), perhaps you could also tell the time whilst doing so...

From the cheaper than Cheap and Chic, 'Love Moschino' line, you get skulls, hearts and flowers mixing together as if it were meant to be...

This is how I actually say "Thank you!" when I'm drunk...

A less extreme take on the Marjan Pejoski famous swan dress, no?

Flicking through the mahussive Moschino ten year retrospective book 'X Anni Di Kaos!' (X Years of Kaos!), which I wish I could scan properly, there was much to chuckle at, given Franco Moschino's unique take on literal referencing and image making...

... given the amount of Moschino intake I've had, it's kind of weirdly sinister that I found this second-hand jacket in Hong Kong of all places.  However I'm all for well-rounded and symmetrical stories for posting purposes so I'm not complaining.  I plan on wearing this jacket only with Steve's Uniqlo gingham shirt for the maximum matchy matchy effect.

Hard Tee

>> I spend many a good period of time, poring over paper selections at Paperchase and then proceed to spend a fortune on a plethora of pretty papers only to find I can't actually do anything with them because of my lack of creativity. I've contemplated making a rough t-shirt with a naively drawn pattern (see shoddy Paint drawing...) and then wearing it for one day as a kind of paper garment type thing.  Then I see Meadham Kirchoff's S/S 10 glitter tees in person.  I'm not sure whether they are made out of fabric but they are definitely rock hard and rigid and remind me of glitter covered card.  I think I embarrassing ask the PR, whether they would chaff or not (I'm told the nip nips are well protected inside as the lining is fairly soft...) but from the exterior, these hard-tees look like they'd be ripe for origami folding. 

An Oasis of Trompe

>> It seems a little strange posting about things I haven't yet seen in person and are being talked about but I'm not one to miss out even if I am 5,000+ miles away.  With my very weak signal, I'm trying to keep an eye out for any significant happenings but bear with me if I am on the slow side...

For instance with design graduate Rosalind Keep's Trompe L'Oeil mini collection for Oasis, Disneyrollergirl very shrewdly spotted the pieces at the press day but now they're finally gearing up to launch and with a price between £35-£40, all the printed oversized tanks and dresses are a not so tricky/trompe-y price.  It isn't Oasis' first time snapping up graduates immediately and putting them work on collections that bear their name and apparently they're set for more of the sort.  Keep's collectioon is set to go on sale in December so I'm told but Vogue has reported it as next Monday... I'm hoping it goes online if it does, as I'm of course still out here and the simplicity of the white tee below is far too 'me' in design NOT to snap up.

  

Secret Spots

Quite a few shops in Hong Kong operate a no-photo policy in their stores so sadly anything that I'm woo-ing and coo-ing about isn't going to make it on the blog unless I come home with a purchase.  I didn't realise the Rise Commercial Mall on Granville Circuit in Tsim Tsai Tsui would be so stringent so these were snapped only to be halted by a big fat no-photo sign.  I just had to snap these knock-offs that are quite literally seam for seam, strap for strap, shade for shade indentikit to the real thing (in design but NOT materials it must be said...) which probably isn't news for those always wandering HK malls but obviously I haven't been back in a good few years so I'm always astonished as to how scarily similar the designs filter down...

Christian Louboutins multi-strapped royal blue suede (or suedette in this case...) ankle boots and Alexander McQueens zipper shoe-boots snapped shoddily...

Most prevalent of them all...the Alexander Wang creeper boots...

Husky Dusky

I DID say posting would be sporadic as is email checking but when you're dealing with 1Mbps connection, this is the way it's gotta be.  Mid-rain and gusty winds, I was rushing around like a headless chicken last Friday on Sloane Street of all places trying to make a phonecall with a dying phone.  Phone dead with not much to do but hang around in the rain, I gandered over to Philosphy by Alberta Ferretti of all places and was stopped in my tracks by some unusual styling involving some dusky colours and sharp and precise knife/cube pleats.  Seeing as it's not one of those collections that is etched into the brain, I did take another gander at its 'soft-grunge' mix of dusky pinks, plums, faded green and grey knitted separates (arm warmers - remember the ones that came WITH your sleeveless polo top...?).  There are also sheer loose trousers galore reminding me of the YSL grey ones I had bought.  So in homage to that night of dying phones, rain and my nose pressed up to the window I delved in for some layered and dusky styling.  Curiously enough, I never retained the arm warmers that were so prevalent back in the day but fear not as Hong Kong has already provided me with some knitted past-elbow length glove options.

(DLittleGarden knitted hat, American Apparel sheer mesh t-shirt, Stella McCartney pale green dress, Topshop Unique metallic dress, cream pleated skirt from Tokyo, YSL grey sheer trousers, Stella McCartney blue shoes, Topshop green lace belt)

Sweat it Out Again

>> From writing about cramming in colours (as predicted, some of you are a little shy about submiting 10-plus-colour-blocked-outfits... keep em' coming as I'd like something to balance out the stretch of grey ahead here...), I've cosied up and gone back to the trusty grey sweatshirt which I've waxed lyrical about 3, 4, 5, 6 times???  Then comes Whistles' lurex version (get click happy on their new e-shop...) which combines this trusty item with a more sheer texture and suddenly I'm back to cramming as many monotone textures in outfits and of course incorporating winter warmers which are now required for the gusty winds and chilly nights...

I'm calling out on my own pedestrian predictability...

(Je Suis Belle hat, Yokoo neck cosy, Uniqlo sweatshirt, Whistles cashmere gloves, Clare Tough skirt, Cooperative Designs skirt, black tights, Acne shoes - yay for press samples!)

Love how there's this molten section out of this Swarovski gem...

(Vintage aviator cap, Whistles lurex sweater, Swarovski black gem necklace, DKNY sheer dress underneath, black tights, LD Tuttle boots, Gemma Degara ruffled gloves, Ado Atelier clutch)

Hong to the Kong

>> I've mentioned it in passing and on Twitter a few times perhaps but I didn't want people thinking why there was an unsightly gap of days of the blog so I'll just say very briefly that I'm going to be flying to Hong Kong to a) give my dusty old HK ID card a swipe at immigration, b) shop, c) eat, d) shop and eat some more and e) most importantly, give Steve a culture shock seeing as he's never been to Asia before.  I'll be gone until the 27th November which isn't a huge amount of time but an absolute age for me not to be on my emails everyday.  I can't recall a time when I HAVEN'T had wifi available to me everyday so this should be interesting... painful at times perhaps...

Anyway, posts will be a bit dotted and sparing but it won't be bare...

Zoo in a Flat

>> Apologies for the Animal Kingdom that has been overunning the blog lately what with the owls (courtesy of Gemma Degara and Christian Wijnants) and zebras (Edun x Dazed & Confused) and now....PENGUINS.  This could be the result of repressing pets for so many years that animals have suddenly started flooding back into my life albeit in inanimate form (I think seeing two hamsters maul each other to death at the age of seven was off-putting enough...).   This is looooong overdue really seeing as these penguins have been sitting at my desk for well over a month waiting for me to scoop them up and brave the bus ride home.  

Fred Butler, who helped out on the pppppp-enguin production for Hillman Studios on the Peter Jensen x Tim Walker special window display for Dover Street Market back in October was kind enough to send over these creatures to me once they had been dismantled from the window.  Just as well as one of the t-shirts from the one-off collaboration (Tim Walker's moon face on a Peter Jensen tee...) inspired by Jensen's Greenland inspiration trip, came to me so I could be at one with the penguins out on my balcony.  After the bonding session between myself an my pack of penguins, I'll let them get chummy with the Muji cardboard owl and orangutan that have just been newly assembled...

Blue Rinse

There's not been much posting because there's been a wedding in the house.  Not mine thank god.  But it would be just like me to spring something like that quite suddenly.  Nope, it was Style Salvage Steve's sister's wedding yesterday and since Steve was the best man, it was all speeches, prep, tailcoats and waistcoats, flowers... etc etc.  Of course my bit part is just to show up and look suitably turned out and not detract attention from the bride.  Despite that insignificance of that task, I still managed to bungle it up.  I had decided to dig out this dress I bought in New York two years ago from Label on Lafayette Street - a cream velvet thing with hand-painted strokes and flocking. 

Yup, remember these awful pics taken in a dark hotel room where I'm part-sleepy and part-foggy.  Well, look upon these as the before pics.  I took it to the dry cleaners and two days later, it came back and all the ink had ran to dye the dress pale blue in parts and intensely navy in others.

I did splutter to the drycleaning lady to whom I had explained extensively how the dress needed to be cleaned... "Erm...it's blue!" and she gave me a smile and said "Ya, it's better, no?", completely unapologetic about the whole affair.  "Err...I guess...?" I shrugged.  I could have thrown a strop about it but actually the more I looked at it, the more the blue was looking more appealing.  For one, it eliminated the slightly bridal-looking element of the dress and the colouration actually gave the dress a new look entirely...

In the gusty winds and harsh grey light, the dress does hold it's own better with the addition of the deep inky blue.  On this occasion, I guess it's ok that I was such a soft touch when it came to the drycleaners but hopefully when a true true disaster comes around, I'll at least give a frown. 

P.S. Quite the wedding for the newly wed Mrs Emma Belton... as the wedding was held at the Mandarin Oriental in Knightsbridge, Beyonce happened to be staying there and she came across the bride and did a finger gesture and said to her "You look A-MAZing...!".  I'm not a celeb gazer but even I would milk that story to grandkids...  

Inhale Your Gift

>> It's been about three weeks since my inbox has been bombarded with "Are you putting together GIFTING recommendations on your blog?  Please consider including our scratchy jumpers//new age hippie jewellery//hair vitamins//travel manicure kits in your guide...".  Of course what they don't know is there's nothing more pet peeving to me than a generic gift guide that every weekly, magazine and newspaper tries to put together, typecasting people into categories and assigning 'appropriate gifts to them e.g. for the teenage boy - a Hollyoaks calendar...

Still, I'm not going to be ignorant of the fact that Crimbo is just around the corner and yes, gifts will be on people's minds and so perhaps there may be a few more posts leading to possible 'gifting options' that is available on the interweb and since there's still well over a month, shipping contingencies can be put in place. 

Stolen Thunder seems an obvious choice and has gotten a bit of British press of late.  However, it was only until I physically smelt their laser cut wooden jewellery that I knew it needed a thumbs up.  As soon as it fell out of the envelope a combination of burning bonfires and hickory wood chips came wafting out from the birdcage necklace which actually made me immediatley put it on so that I could smell it on the tube everytime I felt like it (I used to do this with Stella's Amber solid compact perfume to stop me from being sick on the tube...). 

Their small but well-rounded selection attempts to do for wood what Tatty Devine did for coloured acrylic and at the moment it's all suitably Christmas-y... bambi, owls, Russian dolls etc... I'm quite taken by the rings too which include yet another take on the ever-ubiquitous double ring...

Barney

This is Barney... he may not technically be a barn owl as Muji did not specify but I'm thinking he is because the white cardboard dictates so... (fyi, he was also really satisfying to construct so I'd highly recommend buying a few of Muji's cardboard cut-outs to waste away an hour...)

This Gemma Degara dress from her A/W 09 collection also features a barn owl, which makes sense considering the collection is called "Sleepless Nights".  I only got it this week and haven't quite found the all-nighter night to wear it yet...

The point I'm really trying to make though is that owls have had their time but it's normally the 'typical' owls (tawny in Britain...or to put it scientifically from the strigidae family) are the ones that get manifested as cute necklaces, brooches, scarves and prints (remember that influx of owl-ness a few years back?).  But for me, who's slightly scared of the hawk-like stares of some species of owls is far preferring the gentler looking barn owl on these prints.  Christian Wijnants also featured the barn owl in his woodland-inspired prints for his S/S10 collection.  I took these up-close pictures of the prints when he took his collection to Philadelphia for the Arts of Fashion event.

Moving away from my random owl observation, I loved the frayed textures that Wijnants lavished on his pieces evoking mossy textures and frayed soft feathers/dandelion seeds.

I've been sitting on these pics I took at his presentation in Paris Fashion Week which demonstrate the actual shapes of garments and the feathery textures better...

Sketched and Etched

I'm writing this without the ability to actually reference the magazines physically as I've left them at work so this will test how much of a permanent impression they've left on my less-than-efficient brain.  I will however have to come back and re-edit this post with names of photographers, stylists, writers and illustrators to give credit where credit is due so bear with me.  I am expanding on what I said before about Sketchbook magazine which landed on my desk this week because the sneak preview of content was quite sufficient but of course as with most magazines, holding it in your hand produces a different experience anyway.

In the case of Sketchbook, you're holding two parts to make one issue because of the way it's produced via the company MagCloud.  It's my first experience of print-on-demand mags which explains why each part of the first Sketchbook issue is $28 (printing in small quantities means a higher cost).  That said, I also happen to have the sentance "magazines are a snapshot in time" ringing in my ears and so I look upon these two issues, which are entirely dedicated to fashion bloggers in content and visual treatment, as exactly that; something that probably no other publication will ever do making them unique entities.  Without being able to see into the crystal ball of fashion blogging, perhaps the glass ceiling has been reached and the media attention will dim, thus rendering these two issues as something that marks a milestone in the fashion blogging timeline.

Reading Wafa Alobaidat's editor letter, I cowered in shame at my own initial dimissal of being on the cover: "Oh it's no biggie... the point of the cover is to showcase John Paul Thurlow's cool sketch art, not ME per se... they just picked me probably because I happen to be in London" or some such typical pessimistic statement.  Then I go and read the editor's letter yesterday and nearly wept a bit on the bus... Wafa writes about her experiences of reading the blog whilst being unhappy studying a course she didn't want to do and being inspried by it in variosu ways... it's difficult summarising such a letter without sounding like a twat and I'm not going to blatantly regurgitate it for ego-boosting purposes so I'll give a wee excerpt...

"Lastly, I know Susie has heard this a million times before but in case you want to hear it again, you have influenced my choice of career and opened my eyes to a whole new world. I really do believe I am doing what I love to do because of you and your blog. "

I'm of course incredibly touched by the letter but also completely shocked to hear confessions of how the blog has steered the professional course of someone else's life when most of the time, I'm thinking the blog is just another dot on an RSS feed.  What is incredible though is that, Wafa and her team laud fashion bloggers in their issue, but it is they who have taken the time and effort to assemble over 100 contributors to create a printed publication, which I think is a far grander task than logging into Typepad and typing a bit of text.  So Wafa, you may be praising me in your letter, but it's you who has taken it into your own hands to create your own magazine... nuff said...

 

 

(To clear some facts that were misrepresented in the article about me though and are regular mistakes in ye olde Style Bubble facts... I did NOT attend a Chanel fashion SHOW in 2007... a group of bloggers were invited to go to Paris to preview the then-new Mademoiselle Coco advert and tour Coco Chanel's apartment, NOT to attend the show... likewise, the Gucci trip in New York was in aid of the UNICEF/Madonna event to celebrate the Fifth Avenue flagship opening, NOT to see the Gucci show which is in Milan anyway...)

Right, enough me me me... it IS the Fashion Bloggers issue and there's a lot of us in here... ranging from full on profiles/interviews and always accompanied by illustrations that interpret the mood of the blog as opposed to straight-off press shots...

Diane Pernet

Lulu and Your Mom - Had no idea she was in the middle of writing a book! 

Jennine Tamm of The Coveted and founder of IFB

Abdul LagerfIeld aka Sonny Groo, founder of Mykromag

Those not profiled are given a tribute anyway with an illustration... and of course the superstar quad Garance Dore, The Sartorialist, Tommy Ton of Jak and Jil and Rumi of Fashion Toast had to be there...

Instead of full on words, other bloggers like Tommy of This is Naive creates a collage which sums up the aesthetic of her inspiring blog perfectly...

Other subjects covered also include blogger friendly peeps like Fred Butler whose blogging is as  prolific as her accessories, sets and projects output...

Or you can escape from bloggy blog blog altogether into David Benjamin Sherry's photographs...

Or into the fashion editorials... there's four or five I counted...

...or discover more about artist Alice Instone about her recent exhibition Interview with a Shoe

My favourite non-fashion related feature was the Week in the Life of Working at Vogue House feature that Kristin Knox of The Clothes Whisperer wrote... fashion cupboard tales galore...

But of course, at the end of the day it's still mostly fashion blog related and one article in particular attempts to uncover what it is that makes a successful blog, a question that makes me very uncomfortable when answering that very popular question as I'm thinking people are always expecting me to whip out some kind of blog recipe... the writer's conclusion isthat it's hard to say what secret ingredient you need, other than constant updating... I'm glad that question has been left aptly open-ended...

...and on that note, I leave you with this...