Butt that's a lie!

Apologies for the title. I clearly haven't learnt my lesson about making bad puns. And if you are waiting for the day when I do, I wouldn't hold your breath.

I don't hate what Sienna Miller is wearing here. Fashion blogs are knocking it, but I think she makes it kind of fierce. Okay, I admit she used to dress like an idiot, with leather string around the bottom of her jeans and so forth, and yes, she does suffer from comparisons to Kate (yes, suffer, because no one compares favourably). Also she is a flagrant 'other woman' and so deserving of the spite of the female species (cheating is bad, yada yada yada). Those topless photos weren't exactly classy, but each to their own life. 

Anyway, the moral of this rant is that I don't think she's a total fool, and this pantsuit confirms it.

But then she said that the GI Joe promo poster features her butt. Her real butt. I'm not sure is she's actually seen this poster, but here it is:

That may be someone's real butt, but it's not hers. Next she'll be telling us those are her real boobs, despite they fact that they were clearly drawn by an oversexed man-child with a fondness for anime. 

In this age of digital interference with images I think it is highly irresponsible to set up those pretend images as the standard so explicitly. So Sienna, unless you are willing to put in the hard yards with a Crispy Chicken Deluxe Burger for afternoon tea each day, then shush. 

leather rhinocerous

I went to Melbourne. Fell in love a little bit. With Dali, and with shoes, and with silk dresses. Laughed out loud many times in the Dali exhibition, much to the irritation of the schoolteachers trying to impart a but of culture to their hairsprayed, farting, shrieking charges. Well I’m sorry, but there is no way that a skull sodomising a piano isn’t funny, no matter how old or how educated you are. 

My new job is going awesomely, thanks very much for asking, GOD, why so rude? I won't lie, I'm enjoying wearing pure wool pants and cotton/viscose shirts. I'm a sucker for gorgeous fabrics but they don't fit in too well with my lifestyle since I like to lounge around a lot...(read: I'm very lazy) as a result I own a lot of cashmere jumpers covered in pills. Ohhh, little tip, ebay is great for luxury fabrics because people tend to buy things based on how they look on ebay, not how they feel. As a result, plain and boring garments of the highest quality can be a bargain.

Didn’t take the camera in Melbourne which was a good thing, because it is an excessively photogenic city and I would have been pointing and shooting and wildly abusing the ‘Auto’ setting. The food was excellent, the boy ate duck and kangaroo for the first time (on different nights, I promise), watched the light show during dinner at South Bank, went to hole-in-the-wall fancy-pants posh place tucked in a laneway and ordered a side of fries with the $$$ meals. Just ask if you want to know where to get some cracker chestnut chocolate mouse with spiced wine pear and a hazelnut cigar. Gorged on Mexican on Chapel Street, got takeaway churros, ordered room service because we could. Damn straight. 

For some reason the boy bought three hats (though if he had a blog he would be writing "For some reason the girl bought three pairs of shoes") and he looks like the hardest, meanest criminal in his new slouchy beanies. "It's been emotional", I said to him, and he had no idea what I was talking about until I said it in a scouse accent. And if you don't know where that line is from then your cultural education is sorely lacking. 

You've got the blues in your shoes and you stockings

Im starting a new job on Monday. I've had less than a weeks notice on this and the dress code is 'smart busniess' which is ususally code for 'black and boring'. This presents a problem, because although a large amount of my wardrobe is black, it is because I have a penchant for black heels, and most of those heels are of heights not appropriate for wearing to work unless you work in a strip joint.

But I see this job as a great opportunity to invest in a quality black pantsuit. 'Oh, and you know what would be a great idea', I thought to myself, 'I should go on style.com and have a look at suit styles on the runway and see what kind of thing I like.' I foresaw a couple of flaws in this plan...namely that I probably can't even afford high-street "interpretations" let alone the real thing. What I did not foresee was that I was about to be completely and utterly sidetracked.

Oooooo, the pretty shoes.

In the end, the Dior shoes were definitely my favourite...lingerie inspired heels was always going to be a stretch but oh, Galliano, you are a magician. The hats were also blow-your-mind incredible and I would happily wear any one of them.

Elie Saab put all his models in the same white shoes which matched the all white (and variations on that theme) clothes...nice shoes, I won't deny, but they don't blow my mind.

Jean Paul Gaultier had a few interesting shoes, but his use of clear plastic and his invention of 'boots that are also pants' (patoots? boo-ants?) was disconcerting and detracted from what was otherwise an incredible collection.

Valentino was apparantly very inspired by Prada's fan detailing from earlier this year, and I do prefer his interpretation of it. It's definitely more wearable. Both the feathers and the fan are going to be hard for high-street stores to rip off, not that they won't have a good crack at it.

The gowns at Armani stole the show but the shoes were actually lovely up close. Usually they were obscured by gorgeous blue, black and eggshell coloured gowns dripping with beading and detailing, but here's a pair that mananged to peek out, and I must say I love the use of plastic (Gaultier take note!).

Chanel confused me. Booties and kitten heels and tiny straps that seemed more at place on a 90s runway than now. Also, do I sopt the use of a bedazzler? Okay, they are pretty, but I wouldn't even wear any of these, the stacked heel has been so firmly implanted in my subconscious.

There weren't detail shots from Lacroix and Givenchy which is probably a good thing. I love how haute couture season coincides with not having any more exams!

Weekender

It was the Aphelion on the weekend, when the earth is farthest from the sun. That isn't supposed to affect the temperature, but I would happily argue with that. Traipsed around lovely Sydney trying to get warm, failed. Bought 2m of blue velvet ribbon because I felt like it. Took photos of birds and planes and the sun, which is 3% smaller than it will be at the Perihelion, in 6 months time, when it is closest to the earth.

Falkor

Today is a great day for luck dragon riding. Falkor the luck dragon is one of my favourite characters in fiction. Or reality. Whichever. I'm still a bit peeved that I haven't found the book that will take me to Fantastica, or the wardrobe that will take me to Narnia, or the wings that mean I can take the second star to the right and straight on til morning to Neverland. But I think there's hope yet. 

"Once someone dreams a dream, it can't just drop out of existence. But if the dreamer can't remember it, what becomes of it? It lives on in Fantastica, deep under earth. There are forgotten dreams stored in many layers. The deeper one digs, the closer they are. All Fantastica rests on a foundation of forgotten dreams."

The Neverending Story is a wonderful book, much better than the movie, and Michael Ende is also well known for his other children's book, Momo. As with most good children's books, it is one that most adults would do well to read. It is the story of a little homeless girl who begins to realise that everyone around her is becoming the victim of a complex plot to steal their lives, a second at a time. 

"People never seemed to notice that, by saving time, they were losing something else. No one cared to admit that life was becoming ever poorer, bleaker and more monotonous. The ones who felt this most keenly were the children, because no one had time for them anymore. But time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart. And the more people saved, the less they had. " 

"Calendars and clocks exist to measure time, but that signifies little because we all know that an hour can seem as eternity or pass in a flash, according to how we spend it." 

I took a book, I went into the forest, I climbed a hill, I wanted to look down on you

Lush wants to rename its Tramp shower-gel. They are considering "Dryad" and I am not impressed. I like my shampoo to be free of prissy wicca pagan associations and I really don't think that's too much to ask. Tramp was one of Lush's first shower gels and it promised to make you smell like a tramp that had slept on a bed of leaves. Yum. 

Another Magazine

Art Director: Alexander McQueen

Stylist: Katy England

Photographer: Martina Hoogland Ivanov

Photographer: Carter Smith

Tramps used to be smelly and usually a little bit crazy. But they were also kind and often a bit magical. Nobody likes tramps anymore. Maybe that's why Lush wants to change the name, but I really hope they don't, because I like smelling like a tramp. And would certainly sleep in a bed of leaves if I could.