Thursday 10 November 2011

Review: A Scent by Issey Miyake


Sometimes you don't want to smell of spices or berries or dew collected from the backs of rare Himalayan mountaintop beetles; you just want to smell 'clean'. Enter... A Scent by Issey Miyake.

This fragrance is very green, very clean and borderline soapy. Those people who are obsessed with the smell of fresh linen and washing powder – this one's for you.

Here's the description: 'floral, feminine and warm: a bouquet of flowers made of hyacinth, jasmine and rose petals fused with the warmth of woody notes.' I smell hyacinth – delicate yet pervasive – but I don't smell jasmine or rose. This perfume doesn't strike me as warm or woody, either. It's as cool and crisp as a cologne but with enough white floral to stop it from being masculine. One you'll either love or hate.

It's too green for me, or maybe just too grown-up.

Monday 7 November 2011

Magazine Fatigue

So far so chic
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I adore magazines. The shiny covers, the photos, the content... Even the ads have aesthetic appeal to me. Sitting down with an immaculate new glossy is a treat and an occasion that warrants peace and quiet and a freshly brewed cup of tea.

However, I don't like them as much as I used to. My experiences in journalism and blogging have taught me how advertising- and money-motivated the content is – when the beauty editor says she loves something, she has to say she loves it because the advertisers pay her wages. Magazines give me ideas: blogs provide the reality behind beauty editors' suggestions.

I always loved ELLE but it's really lost its shine through ever more annoying attempts to be 'cool'. The fashion pages are unwearable and abstract and the modular, formulaic layout of the articles bores me before I've read a word. As a subscriber I felt increasingly disappointed and irritated with the crap 'subscriber covers'. Black and white close-ups where half of the person's face is obscured by hair? What an exclusive treat! As an editor of careers magazines I'd help to choose the cover images for my publications: a bad cover really bothers me. I want glamour, not Kirsten Dunst with one eye. Subscription not renewed.

Yawn. ELLE's subscriber covers. 
My favourite for the past few years has been Red. Apart from a few irrelevant articles about having kids, how kids make mess, how busy women are after they have kids... it's all good. Hugely readable, gorgeous fashions (thanks to SFSC girl crush Laura Fantacci at Wearing It Today) and aspirational home and cooking pages too. I loved this Cat Deeley cover from July 2011. Glam, fun and summery.


Which brings me to Vogue's delightful December 2011 cover. I saw this in the supermarket and wanted to buy it. I don't particularly relate to Vogue but I love this cover. Doesn't it make you happy? Who wouldn't want a Vogue Christmas? Maybe I am still a magazine girl after all... 

Tuesday 1 November 2011

Noë Shoes? Welcome to the Candy Shop



Last Friday I attended the BINTM Live event for work. While checking out the stalls at the exhibition I stumbled across Noë shoes. Any arrangement of multiple different colours of one thing appeals to me; when that 'thing' is shoes, I get overexcited.

Noë is a Belgian company founded in 2008 by Luca Dereu. The brand offer 87 colours, 7 different heel heights, 7 different materials and 7 different styles. They also make a wide range of sizes. The chap on the stall told me they have a website but I can't find it. However, the shoes are currently available on Sarenza. Noë are due to open a store on London's King's Road soon as well. Who's tempted?