Brian vs. the bloggers

Er, like hacked second-hand dresses, brand new Illamasqua makeup and meeting people whose blogs you read?

Good because on Sunday I'll be selling some of my stuff alongside some other lovely bloggers at Concrete on Shoreditch High Street.

Hearts and Hands

Way back, before I went to Montreal, and before I got really, really busy with work, I interviewed  Cecilia Hammarborg about her toasty new line, Hearts and Hands. So big apologies to Cecilia for my rubbishness and here's what we chatted about.

Storm coat in yellow tartan

Why did you call it 'Hearts and Hands'?

The name comes from a line in an old Victorian newspaper, 'The Fireside', which reads 'Closer, closer, let us knit hearts and hands together'.

As well as Hearts and Hands, you've got a mainline, Cecilia Hammarborg. What are your inspirations for both?

This city, London, is my biggest inspiration. For my mainline, the Brothers Grimm fairytales, English tailoring and Alfred Hitchcock. Hearts and Hands is a spinoff with a slight sailor theme. Antique brass buttons, a naval tone in checks and textured fabrics and also the crochet sleeve on the Seven Seas coat.

Hearts and Hands Check Cape

What are your favourite pieces from the collections?

The Riding Hood Coat from Hearts and Hands, and my Ezerin Mac in brick red from Cecilia Hammarborg.

Ezerin mac in brick red

Who would you love to dress?

Lots of ladies... Jane Birkin, Yoko Ono, Coco Sumner, Chloe Sevigny, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bjork, Carine Roitfeld, Alicia Keys, Bella Freud, Sam Roddick, Lorraine Candy, Nicola Horlick, Kate Moss, Alexandra Shulman, Tracy Emin, Helen Mirren, Karen Elson, Scout Niblett, Penelope Cruz, PJ Harvey...

What's your least favourite clothing trend? 

I don't dislike the trends. People seem to dress more individually for themselves at the moment, and that can never be wrong. But this 'anti-fashion' that is in fashion is funny...

Hearts and Hands Red Riding Hood Coat

What's your favourite secret place in London? 

Cafe Monkton House in Hackney. My friend Matt is opening somewhere soon at Railroad, 120-122 Morning Lane, Hackney, that I'm sure will become a favourite.

Thanks Cecilia. Find Hearts and Hands at Urban Outfitters and her mainline at Swanfield, which has just reopened in Kingly Court, Soho. 

Upstyler magazine

There must be something in the air, but with the launch of Rollacoaster and the second edition of the Gentlewoman out, it seems like magazine launches are happening again. Last week, I went to the debut of Upstyler magazine with Maria from Tissue Clouds.

How lovely is the cover? Upstyler's an online site that will send out a limited edition monthly mini-newspaper to their mailing list. The launch paper was certainly very beautiful, with a coverline - 'fast fashion is dead. long live your style' - that echoes exactly how I feel about clothes and fashion. Upstyler's an etail magazine that celebrates non-mass market shopping with a blog (contributors include the brilliant Caroline, No) about charity shops and individual style, and a retail site where you can buy second-hand one-offs and designer trinkets.

My only quibble is that if you're celebrating the fine art of chazzing (or charity shops for non-Cheap Date readers), you really shouldn't be re-selling plain tweed dresses for £70, even if 20% does go back to charity. Still: any site that promotes an alternative to the horrors of the high street is alright by me. 

Music Friday: Pavement vs. Echo & The Bunnyman

I forgot that Pavement covered The Killing Moon:



Slacky guitar and owl noises in the background: it's beautiful, chaps, but I think I might still prefer the original.



For some reason, it reminds me of 2am walks home from my uni job in a cocktail bar - dodging the drunks and the dressed-up on the mean streets so I could wash the smoke out of my hair.

Silver Soul

Camel doesn't calm me. As a lifelong magpie, I'm drawn to lurid prints, very bright colours and, always, silver and gold. Whistles is so great right now, and I was loved this metallic jumper even before I knew it was named after a Kate Bush song. Meet the Babooshka jumper.

The texture is brilliant: it's kind of hard and cold, exactly the opposite of how you'd expect a jumper to feel.

Kurt Geiger is also floating my clothing boat, with a whole shop of shoes that are at once both great and really quite ugly. But I won't hear a word against these Silver Edie loafers: they're just beautiful.

What do you think? Have I finally found a showy winter shoe to rival my high heel brogues, which have barely left my feet since last winter?

Fruit loop - Daisy de Villeneuve for Zac Posen

Pretty obvious, I know, but I do like clothes. I even like catwalk shows, but the reality of Fashion Week - the queuing, the pushing, the shoving, the pulsating overdressed mess of it - is, for me, a bit much. Especially when the flu has struck, livestreaming exists and style.com has great shots and descriptions. So, this season, my accessories for checking out the shows are a cold and a cup of tea.

One of my NYFW favourites was Z Spoke by Zac Posen - a younger, cheekier line full of flirty silhouettes, strong colours and really lovely fruit illustrations by Daisy de Villeneuve.

So nice. Zac Posen has always reminded me of Gossip Girl's Chuck Bass (or perhaps the other way round?), and his outfit here is pure Bass. All that's missing is the flared nostrils! 

All pictures - style.com

Music Friday: Belle & Sebastian - Write About Love

Long-term favourites of mine, reminders of my be-cardiganed Nineties and Noughties and one of the things I play to make my boyfriend leave the room (he also loathes P J Harvey and Electrelane, despite romancing one of the ladyband back in the day, which impressed me very much when we first met) - Belle and Sebastian are awesome. They're a Marmite kind of band. I love their insightful lyrics and lovely sound but they're equally hated for being a little too twee and gentle.

Write About Love is their first album in four years, and I already have tickets to their Xmas shows in my sticky mitts. This short film from their website - a funny little thing, a patchwork of live songs, a question and answer session and some scenes parodying the marketing plans needed to release an album.



The super-cute B & S fans make me chuckle a little. The glasses! The fringes! It made me think they should invent a term especially for a group of their fans. A 'cardigan' of Belle and Sebastian fans?

I won an artist for the day

I did. In 'Why I Love Twitter,' part the millionth, my friend Ollie retweeted his friend Caroline who runs T-shirt collective Chief Originals. They were giving away an artist for the day, and all I had to do was retweet. I won a day with Alistair Eland and we met for an awkward art-date in Covent Garden, where he told me about his many exciting projects (setting up communal art studios, and producing some really gorgeous stuff) and I tried to articulate what kind of art I like.

The brief was I could ask for anything, so long as it took a day, which made me wish I owned my house (HUGE mural) or that I wasn't so precious about my bike (it still isn't allowed on on its own overnight). We settled on 'Enchanted Hunters' with a sinister woodland theme - it's my blog title, but it's also a phrase I really love. Here's what Ali made me:

I absolutely love it - although I think it'll perhaps look more lovely in a forest green or dark red. I'm getting a screenprint to hang on my wall, and I think the design would look lovely on a tote bag or T-shirt. What do you think? Enchanted Hunters merchandise...?

Pop your collar

Everything I like for winter has a lapel: trenches, velvet collar coats, buttoned-to-the-brim blouses and Peter Pan collar dresses (like their namesake, it seems like this trend will stay fresh forever). Even the accessory I'm coveting the most at the moment is starched.

Cabinet, stocked at my favourite jewel emporium Kabiri, embellish antique dress collars to make quirky, limited edition necklaces. This one has vintage sequins (which I always think give a slightly nicer sparkle than new) and is just incredible. I like. Very much.

I guess this one is for more of a 'casual' look. You know, sling on some jeans and a Breton, then finish it off with a wing-tipped multi-colour jazzy neckpiece...

And your classic bling. This collar reminds me of the lovely Philip Lim shirt that Alexa Chung wore to an event, which I tried unsuccessfully to DIY. It turns out there's a reason that jewellery designers spend years and years training. 

If I have my way, I'll be buttoning up until 2011.

Mad Men 3: A very quick love letter

*** Spoilers galore! Anyone who hasn't seen Series 3 (probably everyone, ever, except me until recently) might want to skip this***

I've just finished re-watching Season 3 in preparation for Season 4 (which began last night on BBC4), and I've kind of had to get my thoughts straight. I mean, I really loved the first two seasons, but this is the one that's really wormed its way into my subconscious and invaded my thoughts. It's a season of no sleep - long hours in the office and babies and problems at home. Where do I even begin? People always admire the costumes and the sheer style of Mad Men and I do like these but I love it for something else entirely - the sheer complexity of the characters. It's a series that doesn't waste anybody - even minor characters like secretaries have their moment (usually crying wordlessly in the loo or accidentally hacking someone's foot off).

I mean: Salvatore and the porter! Joan's awful husband! Those dastardly Brits! The lawnmower! Betty's crazy hairstyle in Rome! Pete in his civvies! Pete and Trudi's dancing! The Don/Betty marriage-ending throwdown! Peggy and Duck! And Lane Pryce coming out with my favourite phrase of the season, the humdinger 'your ballad of dissatisfaction'...

Even pink-cheeked Harry, usually so comparatively transparent, had this brilliant moment when he and his wife tried to awkwardly manoevre themselves into a conversation at Roger's party. And I can never work out what people's aims and goals are. Not Don, and certainly not Betty - one of the most beautiful women, but also the least likeable (and the worst mum EVER). Start saving for therapy now, Don. Sally's going to need it.

Sally, their daughter, is one of my favourite characters (along with Salvatore and Pete) and I can't wait to see what the creators do with her in the new series. As an annoying, slightly earnest wordy type, obviously I empathise with Peggy, but she needs to take off her metaphorical spectacles and have some fun.

 Images from imdb.com

1 & 2 were all about the fun and the martinis, but 3, to me, seemed like a season of hard work, rupture and disappointment. And it made my heart break again and again (especially Don firing Sal). Mad Men's such a beautiful, complex show. I kind of want to write a thesis about it, but I guess for now, this short little post will do.

For anyone who likes the show and wants to catch up, Will Dean's episode recaps at the Guardian are good, and a little bird tells me that he's bringing them all out in a book, which I will be getting all my friends for Christmas, in the hope that perhaps one or two of them will start watching the show with me.

Tatler takes on the Swinging Sixties

It's been a while since I last posted a shoot, let alone one from Tatler! But my online travels led me to this one, shot by Jamie Brunskill, styled by Hannah Teare and featuring big-eyed, beautiful alien Edie Campbell, who did Burberry and Marc by Marc Jacobs a few years back.

I'm not too keen on the Union Jack bike and those glaringly ugly Gaga shoes but otherwise, I like. Nice flat. This reminded me of a gorgeous shoot years back, I think in Nylon, of Valentine Fillol-Cordier slopping around in beautiful knits and knickers and big glasses, drinking tea in her kitchen.

Christine Hale for Ion magazine

For a city a third of the size of London, Montreal has a huge music and zine scene. I picked up a copy of Ion magazine in a cafe, and found a feature on Christine Hale's beautiful gig posters. 'Making art for music is my #1 favourite thing' she says, and her other favourite things include drawing pictures of dogs and singing in her shimmery folk band The Hoof & The Heel.

Just lovely.