I popped into Osborne & Little the other day to check out Suzy Hoodless' new line of wallpaper. Hoodless is the hot young decorator that all of London are talking about. I love this over scale tulip paper, it reminds me of some of those wacky prints from the late Seventies. There are others, a kelly green tropical leaf which is pretty fantastic, these are so good for any small space you may be wondering what to do with.
I am just writing my copy for Boston, one of the next shopping cities to come out. It is lovely to be reminded of trips and places while I write this up and I wanted to post one of my Bostonian highlights - Plum Produce. Their shop is filled with delicious fruits and vegetables but more practical for the remote shopper they have these test tubes of powdered produce: herbs, fruits and vegetables. They look incredibly pretty and are used by cooks in soups, sauces and well, I suppose anything that needs some flavour. The shop is interesting because there is someone in there slicing for pickles and preparing for powders all the time, so it is really like shopping in a kitchen and purchasing your produce straight from the chef.
WHO KNEW? If you put 50 to 60 grams of bamboo charcoal in one litre of water, you will increase the mineral content and soften the water, making it excellent for drinking. When cooking with rice, bamboo charcoal will emit infrared rays and release minerals which will provide extra sustenance and additional flavour.
While I was in Seattle I went to visit Matt Dillon's (the well know Seattle Chef, rather than the actor) new restaurant The Corson Building. While we were having lunch Matt brought out a jug of water with these sticks of bamboo charcoal in the bottom. First of all it looks fantastic and even better it is this brilliant form of natural filtration. You can buy them on ebay for $5 a packet.
Do you remember Sharyn Storrier Lyneham? She was the editress of Australian Vogue Living and Vogue Entertaining and Travel when I first came across them. Her editions remain some of my favourite magazines and I was so sad when she left. Well, not any longer she is back with a new hat on. Sharyn and her business partner Belinda Seper have opened a shop in Sydney called EDIT. They do some crazy old things, 'reimagining' vintage pieces, upholstering furniture in old fabrics, quirky lamps, and the shop as you see it online is a riot of colour and joy in a very cecil beaton, my fair lady sort of a way. Take a look at the website and if you are lucky enough to be in Sydney get down there and please report back.
Calling all Seattle dwellers, shoppers and people in the Seattle Know, I am on my way there for a shopping story, literally next week. The information that bloggers give is always so useful when I go off to various cities--I hope you will give me some guidance. Just think of the places you would want to be sent if you arrived in Seattle with 48 hours to kill, everything from shops, restaurants, cafes, spas and a cool hotel if you can think of one. Purleeeeease! Thank you very much, love rita x
Phillips de Pury have a charity auction this Friday to benefit Adventure Ecology's Sculpt the Future Foundation, David de Rothschild's charity. Phillips and de Rothschild have commissioned artists to make bird, bat or bee houses out of all the waste that comes from an art sale - the crates, the catalogues, invitations, packaging etc. The result is a sale of fantastic and inventive sculptures and the auction could be a good way to pick up some affodable art, there are no reserves, no buyers premium and sadly no telephone bids, so this only works if you are in London on friday, however it is still worth looking at, i am not going to be buying but i loved looking at the work.
I went to see my friend Lucy Ogilvie Grant when i was in England. She has style coming out of every pore and without even thinking about it. This is her airing cupboard. Usually a design void, she has painted hers red gloss paint with these great white coat hooks. So Cheerful.
I am really not into kitchens unnecessarily taking up space and budget that could be put to better use. This picture shows my kind of kitchen; the curtain is a pretty and cheaper option to having cupboards made and a shelf above is too, instead of cupboards. I can't believe how out of hand the cost of built in kitchens get, not to mention the visual weight and impersonality of it. Shelves of china & glass and lamps are so pretty and soften a space as do whacking great chandeliers--don't you love that?
NB. My sad sieve brain can't recall where I clipped this image from. If anyone knows the book and or the designer I would love to know so that I can go back to the book and also give it a full credit.
I went over to Chelsea yesterday afternoon to Jose Martos' gallery on 29th street to look at the new exhibition up of Servane Mary's works on paper. She produced a series of watercolours of iconic rock stars singing. The overall effect is amazing and the works individually are very cool. There were two large ones of Blondie and Brian Eno that i would love hung in my apartment, maybe where all the flower pictures are hanging now! The prices range from $1500 to $10,000 depending on size. The over all look is black/grey/white and pink which is one of my all time favourite colour combos. In the centre of the gallery is a pink wax tusk sculpture, the hole thing is super cool and definitely worth checking for your favourite singers.
It is not that often that you find pretty garden furniture, this just came through to me from Joe Nye NY, one of my favourite spots to go shopping. He is representing QDG in NY, they produce this metal furniture that is then powder coated in glorious is colours. The style is quite deco and depending on the colour scheme you go for it can either look very Elsie de Wolfe or tres moderne. look at the options on line or go over and see Joe's showroom at Claremont, 1059 Third Avenue
I went to see Tim Walker's exhibition at The Design Museum in London yesterday. If you are not familiar with his fantastical work you are in for a treat. He is one of England's most creative photographers and the exhibition is pure unadulterated joy. His interest in photography started when he was working on the Cecil Beaton archives at Sotheby's and you can see the inspiration, there is always fun, humour, a play on scale and one huge dollop of eccentricity all in the most unpretentious and totally original way - there is a sense of the absurd, fantasy and a bygone ere of ultra England. I am not sure I need to add any more but just in case you haven't realized, I loved every minute of this enthralling exhibition. If you are in London between now and September GO GO GO down to Tower Bridge. It feels like a trek (mostly because it is) but it is so worth it and you can have lunch at one of the restaurants along the river - like Conran's Pont de la Tour.
Panicking about those scaly legs coming out into the open? Get yourself online to This Works for a bottle of Skin Deep Dry Leg Oil. Everyone in London is swearing by it and I am now too. It also smells really good, that aromatherapy, herby, yummy, clean smell.
I hope I am not boring you with all these flowers, but I went down to Petersham Nurseries the other day, to shoot it as part of a story I am doing for the magazine. You will also see more on them in the August issue. It is the most heavenly place and the shop is hugely inspiring. Don't you think this is a chic way of having tulips out. Sadly the only way really to get this look is if you have them growing in your garden, but if you do get out there, cut a few! Doesn't this look like a painting?
I just love pinks. They have suffered the wrath of the style snob, but I have always rather loved them. These ones are especially pretty, I think they look like porcelain frankly and they are so incredibly well priced. I paid a pound per bunch for these (this photo shows 4 bunches), and the little vase cost £6. Even with a weak dollar and an expensive London (where I am at the moment), this is such a good deal. I also love this new florist, Scarlett and Violet at 76 Chamberlayne Road - right at the top of Ladbroke Grove. If you ever need to send flowers in London, contact them, the bunches are so loose and gloriously natural - as though they have been picked from a meadow. I really love what they are doing at Scarlett and Violet.
I don't mind telling you that I have never been terribly organized when it comes to keeping my Heart Strings safe. While I was in Tobias and The Angel this week (a delightful shop that you will read more about in my Shopping London story - in the August issue) I came across this nifty way to keep them under control. Thought is was worth sharing.
I sat opposite a girl at dinner last night called Louisa Guinness. She and two of the other girls at the table were wearing these beautiful rings that looked like Anish Kapoor voids, round rings with concave centers. So of course we start chatting about them. It turns out Louisa is a jewelry designer who has started a collection of pieces with big name British artists. These cuff links are designed by Tim Noble and Sue Webster and are called The Bastards Got Me. Marc Quinn has made a frozen strawberry pendant in white or yellow gold with 54 diamonds for seeds, and there are pieces by Sam Taylor Wood, Gavin Turk and Antony Gormley.
The jewelry is not that easy to get hold of--everything is made by hand either in the artists' studios or at Hatton Garden so the productions are small. However, it is not impossible. Louisa's website shows all the artists that she works with and includes the jewelry that inspired her collection, pieces by Max Ernst and Calder for example. The jewelry is available to order at Ben Brown Fine Art on Cork Street in London but take a look at Louisa Guinness' website where you can also contact her directly.
I am in london doing a shopping story for the magazine. The thing that has struck me more than anything is how green London is, i know this isn't exactly news - there are more parks in london than any other city in the world but there are also so many flowers everywhere. I think we are not just a nation of shopkeepers, but more specifically, florists. I am staying at Number Sixteen Sumner Place, a divine hotel on a smart, residential street in South Kensington - they have knocked the gardens of the four buildings taken to make the hotel together to make this long and very green garden where can have breakfast. It is really charming and amazingly the weather is too.
Naturalizer Shoes are getting behind closet purging. From May 3rd through 11 take your unwanted and gently used shoes - the ones that you would wear to an interview - and still could wear to an interview - and hand them in at your nearest Naturalizer, store. They will donate them and a pair of brand new Naturalizer shoes to the charity, Dress for Success, as well as offer a 20% discount on a pair for yourself.
Dress For Success is a wonderful charity that helps disadvantaged women get their lives together by helping them dress for job interviews. If you have other clothes that you think would be good go to the Dress For Success website and donate directly, this is just such a wonderful pro-active and confidence building charity for women who need a helping hand.
One of the things that nearly always sends me into total confusion and a muddle on a decorating job is the hardware. One doesn't always want to have the recognisable hardware in bathrooms that comes from some of our favourite bathroom supply shops. Try The Hook Lady, she runs from all sorts of swirly designs to a hook as simple and smart as this one. I have just ordered some shelf brackets from her too for $20 a pair.
Aren't these new fabrics pure, spring heaven. This is Carolina Irving's new Collection, which she is selling at Hollywood at Home, Peter Dunham's glorious shop in LA. If you live, at all, nearby head over there, the store shows all the fabrics (as well as a ton of other treats, furniture, antiques and more fabric) and they are happy to see the general public! See below for directions.
Carolina's house is in the latest issue of domino, the one with Julianne Moore on the cover. She has so much taste, check it out, it is very inspiring to see how she uses fabric and mixes pattern. For interior designers the collection is going to be available at John Rosselli.
I went into Porthault the other day looking for blue floral prints. Rose (the appropriately named lady who sees over this herbaceous store) sent me pictures from the stock books in Paris. I just about slid off my chair as I looked over what she sent. Firstly aren't these books heaven? New York is just about bursting with spring, so I can't get enough of a floral print. After these charming flowers that I have never seen before came a page of the more familiar hearts...
How about those pale grey ones? DIVINE, I have never seen a grey and white Porthault heart bed before, but am trying to work out how I can sleep in my very own, quite soon.
D. Porthault
470 Park Avenue, NYC
212 688 1660
I was up at Bergdorf's 7th floor (the website does not reflect the department one bit by the way) over the weekend. They have transformed the place into a burst of bright colors. They have a series of cheerful ceramics--these plates are about $35 each and come in yellow, red, green or blue. They also have these cranberry pink glasses which are blown in Scotland. Porthault has opened a concession and they have a huge room filled with more muted ceramics and glass. There are also wonderful trays with a cut out trellis design in a bunch of colors. It is really inspiring and gets one feeling ready for a cocktail on a terrace somewhere.
Grana and Mau is a most charming website, only just gone live this week, which sells clothes and bed linens for little girls and boys. There are the most adorable little embroidered pajamas, nightdresses and bed linen. I am sending a friend of mine a white baby pillow embroidered with beige hearts. I love the beige and white option for newborns--one doesn't always want to color code a baby. The pajamas are totally adorable offered in 'Mau' or European styles and embroidered with dragon flies or boats for example.
I got sent this email today from Marc Jancou Contemporary for Thomas Zipp's exhibition. Just as I was about to delete it in a fury of grrrrrrrrrrr, I wish people would stop sending me junk and how do I get on all these databases, I noticed that the picture was actually kind of great. So I clicked further, and I love it. Is it a crazy string tree tied with a bow? If someone looked inside my head right now I think it might look a little like this, and I love the textured black background. I find it a strangely cheerful and perky image. I might even go and check out the rest of the paintings.
Exhibition opens tonight at Marc Jancou Contemporary on Great Jones Alley, and runs until May 24th
212.473.2100.
I was flying around town on a mission yesterday, looking for champagne flutes, charger plates and trays for hors d'oeuvres. Charlotte Moss' shop very quickly rose to the top of my list of places to go. I am ashamed to say that I hadn't been in before, for various dreary reasons. I loved it. I found the most beautiful glasses for champagne, not exactly flutes - they are Venetian colored glass. I bought a pale peachy pink and a stronger more purply pink. Then I was on to Italian paper desk sets, box files, letter racks, pencil pots, pen trays, note blocks all covered in beautiful papers. There are wonderful stacks of books and accessories - fabulous silver trays, napkins, cutlery - all in a Charlotte Moss house and all in their appropriate room. There is something about the big, established and traditional interior decorators that always amazes me. The detail is just so good and the comfort level so high. Whether you are into the look as a whole or not, I find that there is always a lot to learn from them and style elements to pinch!
The shop is a great resource, it is bright, beautiful and cheerful and so are all the girls that work there.
This bud vase is hand made by Charlotte's stepson and is $60. I do love a bud vase, they are so easy to fill and are so pretty on a small table, one's desk, bathroom, just easy peasy.
The store is at 20 east 63rd Street, NYC T. 212 308 3888
