I think I found my label soulmate

I've always wondered how anyone can claim to have a favourite, favourite designer that they stay loyal to season after season. For me, it always depended on the collection, whichever one jumped out at me the most as I flicked idly through style.com. This year for S/S '10, that collection was Preen. I wanted every single dress, the pinks, the metallic fabrics that looked like they would crackle if you touched them...then this week I had an epiphany. It was like that moment in Clueless where Alicia Silverstone realises she's in love with her stepbrother Paul Rudd...I LOVE Preen! I love how their designs are sophisticated and clean-looking yet still edgy. They make the best party dresses I've ever seen. I want to wear one on the night bus home.

I would love to be wearing their famous 'Power' bandage dress in New Years Eve this year, preferably with a shrunken leather biker jacket and these Office platforms I um and ahh over everytime I go in the shop. Oh, and maybe a McQueen skull clutch if you don't mind Father Christmas?

Shiny hair, that's my life ambition

I don't watch The City but I have a bit of a style crush on Olivia Palermo and like looking at Candid pictures of her. I love the fact that she takes so much pride in her appearance, she ALWAYS looks so put together. I'm kind of over the whole Alexander Wang/Erin Wasson aesthetic, what's wrong with making a little effort now and again? I felt really riled by that kind of smug article Alexa Chung wrote a few months ago in Vogue about how being groomed is so 'not-British' and distinctly uncool. What's wrong with looking neat and pretty? Everybody looks ten times better with clean, shiny hair!

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

Whilst I'm not the biggest Brangelina fan, how could you NOT love this? It's brilliant, very Old Hollywood. W Magazine, July 2005

Teen Vogue November '09 - Chanel & Jourdan

I haven't bought Teen Vogue for years, but I'll definitely be getting a copy of the November Issue which features Chanel Iman and Jourdan Dunn on the cover, the pictures from the editorial are absolutely beautiful, they look so fresh and pretty! Sometimes it's nice to see models smiling rather than fashion-pouting for a change.

tfs

Chanel Iman is one of my favourite models at the moment, I just love her face. Jourdan is especially stunning in the last photo, although sad but true I can see this issue being marred by a lot of controversy over the decision to put a pregnant, teenage model on it's cover, since it is a magazine primarily read by young girls.

In Furs

Kate Moss, Vogue Paris October 2009

I'm kind of obsessed with faux fur at the moment. Now that it's colder I've been wearing my vintage leopard faux fur coat nonstop. Everytime I visit the shops I'm more and more attracted to all the luxurious, impractical fabrics - fur, heavy sequins, beading, feathers, leather, lace...

Yvan Rodic does Paris

I did not realise until fairly recently that Yvan Rodic, aka Mr. Facehunter, has another, in my opinion better, blog in which he records all the beautiful sights and beautiful people he meets on his travels. Since I have been a francophile pretty much since the age of five, when my parents thought it would be fun (and educational!) to send me to 'Le Club Francais', I was most excited to peruse his photographs from Paris during fashion week:

Sometimes all I want to do is jump on the Eurostar, eat macarons, drink tea and people watch. I've been seriously thinking about spending next summer working in Paris.

Haus of Victor & Rolf

I think the best exhibition I've ever seen in London was last summer's 'The House of Viktor & Rolf' showcase at the Barbican. In fact, I really regret the fact that I only went once; it was that good. I really love the way Viktor & Rolf bring art and fashion together in order to make something both surreal and classically beautiful. Alongside projections on the walls of their most famous collections, there was a huge dollhouse structure filled with china dolls dressed in miniature replicas of their creations. I could have easily stood and stared all day.

This brings me nicely to Viktor & Rolf S/S '10, with which they didn't disappoint:

I have a really bad cold and I've spent my weekend watching East-End gangster films, but when I saw these gowns I literally gasped audibly - they appear to defy gravity almost. So strange, yet at the same time still quirkily wearable.