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Sweet Rose

My great-grandma – Nana - died this morning. Ever since I can remember, she always called me her “sweet rose.” She was ninety-five: born in 1917 as the last flames of the First World War flared. She lived through almost a century of history, but to her it wasn’t history – merely life. She had a sweet, loving heart that was squeezed by her upbringing. Her father was a Methodist minister, and she grew up being taught that other people’s needs were more important than hers. Her parents expected their only child to have a smile for the public, practised in front of a mirror and then worn at all times like a paper cut-out. If she showed preference for certain toys then they were taken away and given to someone else deemed more needy. Her treasured dolls' house was a casualty of this process, something she never forgot. She was forbidden from forming any meaningful friendships – for if she favoured one girl then her parents claimed she would upset the others.

These rules and expectations echoed through the rest of her life. Nana had no space to flourish, and so developed a tendency towards self-destruction.  She was an extraordinarily talented painter and pianist. Despite such talents, at nineteen she was told she could not continue a study of music as it was time for her to become engaged. At twenty-one she married the man to whom she had been betrothed at birth. He was five years older than her, and had held her when she was a few days old – their parents setting out the future for the two of them. Nana was a product of the times; property handed from father to husband. She was expected to fulfill the twin roles of housewife and mother.  But there was luck. My great-grandfather was a considerate, sensitive man who had no desire to assert his power, and the two of them lived in a sibling-like relationship. He was a primary school teacher, on his way to becoming a head teacher, but joined the RAF at the start of WWII; making use of his Cambridge maths degree to train young men in radar use. He was barely home for six years, with only sporadic visits back to his wife and only child (my mum’s mum). But this was no exception, merely the rule of a time when everyone was working through varying degrees of personal loss and trauma.

At this point my great-grandma moved back in with her parents, who had an open-house policy for all servicemen passing through Stratford upon Avon. It was perhaps one of her happiest times, with the duties of war giving Nana a defined role. She had purpose - helping out in the canteen, and spending her evenings driving around a projectionist who set up film showings for troops. Once a young couple arrived at her parents’ house with nowhere to stay. They had been married that day, rushing into matrimony before the RAF pilot returned to duty the next morning. Nana gave up her bed – laying out fresh sheets and flowers – so that the newlyweds might have a proper wedding night.  It was a moment of true selflessness, my great-grandma wanting to be the agent of someone else’s brief happiness.

For the seventeen years I knew her, the last four were characterized by extreme dementia. She still referred to me as her “Rose” when I saw her, but she was confused – asking my mum how my career as a high court judge was going (when I was sixteen), and whether my brother enjoyed his job as an engineer (at age eleven). Her days were full of fantasy – populated with television personalities she regarded as personal friends, and family members who had long since died. There were flashes of warmth as she said “thank you duckie” or referred to my mum by her nickname. But she was frail, hanging onto life with ever-aging hands. The news today was sudden, but not unexpected. 

When my mum was with her this morning, she described Nana as looking like a “tiny alabaster saint”. It’s easy to glorify those who have passed away, as though the tensions and problems of previous years are cancelled out. But this is not a hymn to my great-grandma. Instead it is a folk-song: a narrative recalling her in all her beauty and her unhappiness. She was both extraordinary and ordinary, as perhaps we all are. She saw a country change from gas lights and horse-drawn milk-floats to the internet and fast cars. In fact, in the late 1970s she insisted that my great-grandpa bought a bright yellow TR7 sports car for them both to drive – upgrading from the rather more mundane mini. This is one of the many snapshot tales that define her. It is part of remembering and celebrating someone to share their stories, and we keep them as heirlooms – carefully folded; ready to shake out and to pass down.  

She is survived by her only grandchild (my mum), two great-grandchildren (me and my brother) and a niece.

Roses seemed particularly appropriate for this post. The vintage dress I'm wearing (in shots taken a few months ago) is very similar to one that we have slides of my great-grandma wearing. And at the moment there is a framed photo sitting on our kitchen table, the image showing my great-grandfather in his garden, framed by banks of bright flowers and roses. Nana had it in her bag when she was taken to hospital for the final time. 

Two Minds

Candice Lake for Vogue UK

Candice Lake for Teen Vogue 

Marcus Dawes for LFW Daily

The Topshop Tumblr

Cognitive dissonance is a phrase used to describe being in two minds at once – the ability to hold entirely opposing views at the same time. It’s the perfect definition of my current feelings towards London Fashion Week, and by extension to the industry in general.

I love fashion. I wouldn’t have this blog if I didn’t. I think that dressing up is magnificent, with personal style a powerful and satisfying form of creativity. It can be playful, whimsical, dramatic – whichever adjective is best suited. My friend Stella claims that: “every outfit reflects a bit of me, a piece of art that I have created.” ‘Expression’ is an over-used term, but it captures the essence of the potential found in clothes. What you wear can tell a story, convey personality (or obscure it), provide an antidote to routine and make life a touch more joyous. I have a wardrobe pregnant with velvet and tulle, seventies dresses and kilts, printed shirts and fringed tops. Hats cover every surface, jewellery drapes the dressing table and belts hang like creepers on the back of my door. My room is glutted on style, and I relish the prospect of getting dressed each morning.

I’m also entranced by those designers who elevate cutting and stitching to an art form: the late Alexander McQueen placing models in Russian princess style costumes, Mary Katrantzou enlarging a type-writer print on a cape that wouldn’t look out of place in the Bodleian library, Corrie Nielsen tailoring dresses to mimic flowers. The brilliance of fashion is demonstrated in these designs – in the colours, the structures, the narratives behind the collections. It is an industry of rich heritage – from Schiaparelli’s avant-garde creations to Chanel’s casual couture – with new innovators emerging every year.

And yet, beneath this beautifully trimmed exterior, there are elements of the fashion industry that I am less comfortable with. I’m uneasy in the knowledge that many clothes (high street and high end alike) are produced in factories where workers are exploited and rivers stained with dyes and chemicals. I have qualms over the body shape that models are expected – nay required – to conform to. I’m aware that there is something suspect in the success and celebration of a luxury market at a time when unemployment in the UK stands in the region of 2.56 million. These are brief generalisations, but typify a few of my recent multi-layered thoughts. How do I reconcile promotion of and immersion in a world I don’t always feel proud of? Can I enjoy certain aspects of the industry whilst criticizing others?

The short answer is ‘of course’. As humans we naturally hold conflicting views and are fickle in switching when suited. Opinions evolve and change. But these chattering questions became clamorous at London Fashion Week. The experience is always intense – both incredible and ever-so-slightly unsettling. As usual, I was swept away by the theatricality (which I discussed in an article for Lionheart magazine) - with the combination of collections and well-dressed attendees providing a visual feast. Bora Aksu’s show was ethereal and fairytale-like; Fyodor Golan suggested both fragility and strength in a corset of shattered porcelain; Ji Cheng’s pieces inspired by Chinese tea-brewing rituals were airy and earthy. I eyed up Pachacuti’s hats in icecream shades and stroked Junky Styling’s practical, boy scout-esque capes.

I also had fun planning what to wear – with Charlotte Taylor silk prints on one day, and a second hand Moschino floral-embroidered blazer on another. However, I left LFW feeling a little ambivalent about the nature of street style. I’ve listed a range of talented photographers before – Dvora, Vanessa, Candice and Marcus among them – whose work I value and enjoy. LFW affords the chance to dress up in the company of other people interested in aesthetics. Nonetheless, this season I realized that I subconsciously judged my outfits according to how many photographers asked to snap it. It’s a precarious point to be at, where self-worth (or at least satisfaction) is reactionary – informed by the opinions of others. I like to stress the importance of doing things for oneself, but it is easier preached than practised. The outfit pictured above roused the most attention, and as a result I felt happy with it. It has no more intrinsic worth than what I wore on the other two days, and of course style is also in the eye of the beholder, but does that mean that it stands out as being the most ‘successful’?

There has been a general cloud of chatter around street style this season, focused primarily on two criticisms: outlandishness and commercialism. The former is harder to define, as some of the best-dressed people I know are deliciously outlandish. But they are authentic – not ornamenting themselves purely for the flash of a camera. The latter, commercialism, is manifested in the showcasing of the ‘latest’ heels or the ‘hottest’ handbags on the arms of show goers. Again, I know there is a gossamer thin line to tread. I  asked to borrow a Charlotte Taylor top because I completely believe in her vision, and wished to wear one of her beautiful pieces. I received no financial compensation, and chose the cabbage pattern as being something I would want to buy and wear myself. But there has been a general shift from street style as a celebration of creativity to a further form of (often covert) advertising.

This is neither a full-blown criticism of the industry, or a defence of it at all costs. I like to challenge those who claim that fashion is frivolous or without substance, but also want to acknowledge that it is by no means a perfect business. The first step to change is discussion. I haven’t suggested any ways to rectify the issues I have raised (although I certainly hope to explore this in the future). I just wanted to air them – shake them out and hold them up in full view. 

Dress - sixties' vintage (a Christmas present), felt hat - vintage (Oxfam), chelsea boots - charity shop, socks - formerly my grandma's, pale grey long jacket - Max Mara (charity shop), belt - great grandmother's, jewelry - family hand-me-downs, small blue satchel bag - charity shop.

By the way, I finally set up a Clothes, Cameras and Coffee Facebook page - a little empty at the moment, but hopefully not for long. 

Rambling

“Let’s go for a walk” used to be a dreaded phrase. When I was eleven, and my brother six, we collaborated - spinning outlandish excuses and reasons why staying at home was the better option. It was largely a pretense, or maybe just an inevitable part of the routine – enacted between the making of sandwiches and the pulling on of wellies. Our protests melted away faster than icecream on a warm day once we were outside. We clambered through the next few hours, stick fighting and climbing trees, or chasing each other through fields in the evening light. And yet, the next proposed walk would be met with exactly the same response, and the cycle started again. We had to be tempted out by promises of blackberries or bags of sherbert lemons. We folded arms, deliberately left our anoraks behind and grumbled as we left the house.

The desire to stay inside has been thoroughly broken now. I love a quick pound up the lane before twilight, or an early morning visit to the lakes. What I most like about the countryside is its mix of the solid with the ephemeral. It’s comforting to know that whatever happens, the crops are sown and the hills sit amiably. Trees, fields and flowers are a constant presence. They remain after each generation has bloomed and gone. But nature, like a snake, is always growing and then sloughing off new skins.

Whenever I’m feeling wound up, I head outdoors. I’ll walk down the road, swerve around the edge of my neighbour’s house and along a path with sentinel trees on either side. There are steps hacked into the bank at the end, with a rather ugly silver gate at the top. But the two interlinking fields beyond provide just the right distance for quickly beaten footsteps. From the top I can gaze across the village.  Pheasants screeching further off are rusty saws, and the tang of fox hangs in the grass. Depending on the time of year, the view will be curled with woodsmoke, blurred by mist or bright in summer sun. Recently the scenery has been obscured. With a month’s worth of rain falling in twenty-four hours, leading to floods, cancelled trains and half-submerged cars, never has a decent pair of wellies been more needed.

The wonder of wellies: ideally they shouldn’t be too clean, but crusted with mud and spattered with puddle water. They will have stones stuck in the grooves of their heels. They’ll have been used to wade through streams, slide across fallen trees, and tramp along the edges of fields. Everyone has them, often stacked up - or more likely tossed together in a pile. They have a Russian doll–like sense of scale – going from huge to tiny as they encompass the foot sizes of the family.

For now though, my usual sage green wellies have been cast aside and replaced with this delectable Joules pair shown above. They have been on only one (dry) outing so far and are thus still very shiny and new-looking, but I can’t wait to kick them through leaves. It was hard to say no to an offer of a pair, particularly once the practicality was factored in alongside the style. I can escape cagoules and fleeces, but wellies are just one thing a country girl can’t be without. However, I can happily state that they are usually the only practical part of my outfit. I have clambered over barbed wire fences in long lace skirts, taken three hour hikes in tea dresses and capes, and even took a stroll last Christmas day in a full-length red jumpsuit with white polka dots. 

Big thanks to Joules for the Welland Women's premium lace wellies. It was difficult choosing from the many varieties and colours, but these laced blue beauties were the ones that absolutely jumped out. They arrived in a great floral-print box that I'm already re-using for storage and they even come with an alternative pair of dusky pink laces, which I will be making good use of in the future. Here's to many years of rambling and wandering around. 

You can see all the latest designs here.

Alongside the wellies, I'm wearing a vintage lace and cotton slip from a market stall. The jacket is Karen Millen (bought in a charity shop), the hat is vintage and the little blue bag is second hand. 

april

| SHOWERS |

there's no better way to welcome april than with fresh flowers -- even if the month is infamous for drizzly weather. my preferred source for beautiful blooms is The Meadow, which i've post about a few times before. hope your week is off to a great start !

shoe

| HUNT |

i'm currently in a shopping mode/mindset that usually hits me mid-to-late february: building my spring wardrobe. i couldn't get over these sandals (from zara) and knew i needed them, even if it was snowing at the time. the neon and neutral had me instantly !

sunday

| STELLA |

i consider stella mccartney one of my favorite fashion designers. every season [and particularly, stella's pre-seasons], i love her more and more. this past sunday morning was spent reading cathy horyn's profile on the brilliant brit. the photos, the article, the title; all perfect in my mind as i sat and read in my sun drenched apartment.

x read here

x last photo credited to the times