i like my body when it is with your

body. It is so quite new a thing.

Muscles better and nerves more.

i like your body. i like what it does,

i like its hows. i like to feel the spine

of your body and its bones, and the trembling

-firm-smooth ness and which i will

again and again and again

kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,

i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz

of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes

over parting flesh ... And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new

- e e cummings

Girl of my Dreams V

She is so hot; Hot in colour and cool in black and white. And sometimes you cannot help wonder what is behind that mesmerising flick of her eyeliner.
Brigitte Bardot.

La Garconne

*from La Garconne

1. To be effortlessly stylish - it is not about what you wear, but the attitude, talent, charisma that makes what you are wearing extra special.

2. In fact, who would not want to wander in busy streets to shop for some scallop trimmed shorts, trench coat, paired with ballerina flats, straw boater and a striped or lace or linen shirt? Sometimes I easily get overwhelmed by material desires; but when I reside in silence again, nothing indeed satisfies me more than a priceless moment; a good book, nice company, a warm cup of tea, a cat curling in my lap, and cherry blossoms and trees and the smell of toasted marshmallow suffusing the air; then I become une garçonne once all my senses are alive, and enjoying life in its rawness and fullness again.

Dreaming of Old Covent Garden

Van Gogh

Romans Parisiens (Les Livres Jaunes) 1887, Vincent Van Gogh

My friend and I queued for 2 hours trying to get into The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts; but the queue was stagnant for a good while, plus the gallery would probably be so crowded that we could only have a glimpse of each painting from afar - after tossing the coin, we left and got the exhibition catalogue instead (for £10.50 - Even cheaper than a single ticket!) Then we went to the National Gallery to see some other Van Gogh paintings instead.

Above is one of my favourite drawings of his.

Nadinoo at work

Tommy from This is Naive had an interview with Nadia Izruna, the lovely girl behind the brand Nadinoo (which I started getting obsessed about a week ago!) Fleur, Lula and Pixie are the three imaginary muses she designs for, after which most pieces in each collection are named. And to work with vintage pattern and liberty print fabric, to add her own personal touch and to hand-make a dress from start to finish - such is a joyful vocation!

You can read the whole article *here

Persephone Books

'Persephone prints mainly neglected fiction and non-fiction by women, for women and about women. The titles are chosen to appeal to busy women who rarely have time to spend in ever-larger bookshops and who would like to have access to a list of books designed to be neither too literary nor too commercial. The books are guaranteed to be readable, thought-provoking and impossible to forget.'

'Our books look beautiful because we believe that, whether they are on an office desk, by the Aga, or hanging in a bag over the handles of a buggy, it is important to get pleasure from how they look and feel. With their distinctive plain grey jackets and cream 'labels' for the title wording, all our books look the same from the outside. Inside, each is different, with the endpapers chosen especially to match the date and mood of the book.

Fabrics are as much a part of our daily lives as furnishing and dress materials, yet we rarely see them used in any other context. However, fabric design should be celebrated for its own sake; and because it is a field in which women designers have been particularly prominent we would like to use their work whenever possible.'

An incredibly beautiful bookshop, with many interesting titles written by many women who have lived. With words interwoven with vintage fabric, we are back to the women's times where they wandered, wrote and weeped.

59 Lamb's Conduit Street

WC1N 3NB

Like mother, like daughter

*jak and jil blog

Style cannot get better than this.

Girl of my Dreams IV

Quoting Penguin Modern Classics -

Carson McCullers was born at Columbus, Georgia, in 1917 and died in Nyack, New York, in 1967. Although her life was short, and beset by serious illness - she suffered three strokes before she was thirty - McCullers created a substantial and impressive body of work... McCullers was only twenty-three when, in 1940, she burst onto the New York literacy scene with her first novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.

McCuller's achievement has been recognised worldwide,.. V.S. Pritchett described her an 'incomparable storyteller'. WIlliam Trevor named The Heart is a Lovely Hunter as one of his ten desert-island novels: 'I value her perceptions, the casting of her spell, what she says and how she says it, her own enduring heart.'

She is one of the best storytellers of the past century - as I read on (addicted, and can hardly put down the book), she transformed my average tube journey into a swirl-wind of stories of many men and women in the deep south American wilderness, as the men and women poured their heart onto McCullers, and her narrative whispers so softly yet firmly into our ears.

And you will see no fragility in her body, but only her bright mind, her wide, bright eyes, burn right inside your eyes.

Turning 'stressed' into desserts

i am ordering vintage tea ware from The Oxford Tea Party (25% off everything until 17th april!) and cannot wait to bake scones, drink tea, and read and laugh with the girlies, as spring softly treads in april and may.

Cinematic Writing 0

Lina Scheynius

Of all four floors, in, out, the love-struggle

In all its acts and scenes, a snakes and ladders

Of intertangling and disentangling

Limbs and loves and lives. Nobody was Old.

- Ted Hughes, 18 Rugby Street from the Birthday Letters

*Wish list

spring time - who would not want a flower petal blouse?

handmade and silk: by Nadinoo

Bande à part

On fragrance, beauty and gustatory pleasure

Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger.
There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can
smell it and that is all.

- Somerset Maugham

My collection of perfume, from left to right: Pure Poison, Beyond Paradise and Chloe. Each name and fragrance promise something beautiful - seduction of a new lover, a swirling romance; a heavenly place beyond imagination, irresistible loveliness and charm. But in essence, these indescribably mesmerising fragrances - they evoke a deeper feeling in me, the memory of an unforgettable kiss in the musky darkness, of feeling being on top of the world, of sunshine, of coming in from the terrestrial rain, of tenderness and joyful surprises.

The feeling of I am, for a moment, uniquely feminine, empowered, and invincible.