Afternoon tea at the Connaught Hotel

Bag – Couronne. Shoes – Zara.

Tropical-print cardigan – COS. Frill crepe bralet – Topshop. Pencil skirt – Next. Heels – Zara. Bag – Couronne. Bar necklace – Kirsten Goss Urban Edge.

“You look like an ambassador’s wife!”, Kit yelled as she found me sitting in a park bench waiting to go for tea at the Connaught. If I had spotted her first I’d have opened with “It’s my birthday, just today PLEASE lie about my how my new hair looks and tomorrow you can tell me I look like I need to pick up my two kids from football practice at 3pm”. Alas, I was immersed in trying to lure a squirrel with a crumb-looking stone and my new hair had curtained over my corner-eye – the first betrayal of many, I anticipate. So then we all went to tea, Honest Kit, an ambassador’s wife and her sidekick, the beautiful turquoise Couronne bag that looks like it could hold any political secrets. I guess today I had legitimate looks for the ‘Do you know who my husband is‘ or ‘I declare war on your café‘ card, if ever the need arose.The deal with the hair is, I’d gotten it permed and cut just over a month ago, but the style was so un-maintainable what with absolutely no blowdry skills whatsoever, I went back in for a shorter length where Mrs Jackie had thrown in a blow dry as well. So, realistically, this style will NEVER appear again on the blog unless I magically give birth to an intern who will just help blow dry at 7:55am before I leave the house at 8. I came home and told the hubby the story about my new title, and he just said “you just look like a ‘wife’ to me”. Well, thanks, you both.

By the way, and it feels wrong of me to push this to the side, but the Afternoon tea was heavenly. What a treat! The Connaught Hotel is no doubt one of my few favourite luxury 5-star hotels in London, and while I’ve been around during cocktail hours (and learning how to make a wicked Old-Fashioned with Editer), I hadn’t tried the afternoon tea at the Espalette. Well, no wonder as around 3-4pm everyday I’m hitting back alleys in search for the fifth and final caffeine fix of the day or a bag of Haribo to inhale. The scones are warm and soft – let that be your reason to go. Butter that scone, if you know what I mean.

Samsung Wave II, courtesy of Spreading Jam & Samsung

Shots from London Underground, LFW, home, home 2 (Warsaw), Freemasons’ Hall, Next HQ, airport, Topshop… etc

I think the reason I agreed to take part in the Samsung Now Project was predominantly the fact that the Wave II phone spoke Korean – what a novelty it was to be able to type in Korean to my friends (by friends I mean ramen bowls with eyes drawn on)…  later when I read the small print I noticed keywords like facebook, filters and competition… aych, them speedbumps are never visible at first glance. But alas, the only ‘speedbumps’ I let get in my way were my boobs while squeezing under the BFC camera at the PPQ show. For the past 2 months I’ve been putting the Canon to bed early and going out with the Wave II to snap some ‘Now‘ moments. Then I’d come home, jazz it up with a filter equivalent of rabid racoons (Cute in essence, BUT VISUALLY SO WRONG) and putting it up on their Facebook gallery.

I think I was also meant to let you know the submission was open to everyone and 50 winners would have their photo displayed in the Design Museum, and the top 25 were to win handsets… but I think there was some selective reading on my part.  No, this post is just severely delayed, you can see by the fact the amount of time passed for me to have caught shots from the air, from underground, from London, from Warsaw, from a fashion show, from a spaghettihouse… a week more and I would have managed to capture a shot from inside the British embassy in Warsaw. An arrest might’ve been the highlight of the week.

Unfortunately the competition is now closed, sorry :(
Also, bit of an irony that this Samsung Wave II post landed on top of the tsunami post, uncomfortable occasion to find a pun…

My handwriting is an embarrassment. I told you, too much type type type x time = retarded scribbles.

OK I’m just going to pretend ALL the above was written with my left hand.

I’ll make it as easy for those far away and possibly unconcerned for the party that’s now migrated to this rainy island, but over the next 5 days it might be rather stormy in here. Obviously you don’t come to this blog to read up on the hottest and latest of London Fashion Week and it’s not like I can do hottest and latest, I can do lukewarmest and backloggest if you want? No. There will be much curating going on here for your benefit, and please do have a peek at Full Frontal Fashion (of Sundance Channel) and the Next Blog from time to time – there will be cows and fences flying around in that storm.

Also on a separate note, I’ll be a part of a small collaboration with Uniqlo on their new fashion community Uniqlooks that launched today – just one outfit per month is all, although my love for that brand warrants many many more.

My failed attempt at giving Jen a fishtail braid…

Lovely Charlie of A La Mode | Lucy’s DIY collar!

Carrie of Wishwishwish

Frances & Sandra style challenge looks

Video courtesy of Next; Outfit: Sweater – Maska, Dress – Storets.com, White shirt – AA

I love Next. I mean, aren’t they geniuses? One first class carriage full of fashion bloggers, one innocent explosion and poof goes a sizeable chunk of the UK fashion blogging community. GENIUS! Imagine the article on that. Fess up Next, how much did you get paid by the journalists & editors (those robbed of Danish pastries by bloggers at the last fashion week)? Conspiracy aside, I do think I’m starting to fall for Next, their nod towards the bloggers is proving to be very friendly, and they’ve really played up their game with the trend interpretation. (Although, call me tasteless, but the 70’s trend really doesn’t appeal to me at all. )

The trainride was to Next’s headquarters in Leicester where we were fed and watered, then set loose in the mock-shop in a competition to style an item assigned to each of us. It was like a 9 year old’s birthday party at McDonalds really, in the best sense possible, I love birthday parties. And 9 year olds. As you can see my item was a pair of flare jeans, and instead of trying to smuggle and trade between the contestants with better items I decided, heck, let’s just go with it. On hindsight, I should’ve wrestled Frances to the ground for the white blazer. You should watch the video – I say I wanted to style it ‘boho’ and the only thing boho about the outfit is the misfitting jeans and my speech on peace love and understanding. My, I had such a blast this day.

Thank you Next and Jenny from Spreading Jam for organizing an amazing day, and Kit & Jill for snaps!

Sweater – Next, Skirt – H&M, Belts – Jin Yoo 103684, Shoes – Zara, Bracelet – Scrap rom CSM Jewellery studio

Jazmine, Moi, Nic, Sabine, MJ, Adele, Jen , Sarah, Sherin, Vicki

(Went a bit Pascal Fashion Bits & Bobs-style in the outfit collage due to staff shortage…)

Unfortunately this will be my last challenge for Take10 – I’ve decided to leave the project due to time management issues… and looks like I’m actually going out with a bang. By bang I mean a hyper-destructive explosion that caused the birth of this toxic sweater. I’m going to be honest, because in this superficial business of fashion the appeal of us bloggers is that we can’t be bought (with a free sweater) for a good review… If this teaches someone something, i.e Next to stop making itchy sweaters, then it really is a win-win tactic. It’s rather uncanny because, Next is doing so well nowadays with affordable trend and I’ve constantly been impressed, but if Andrea’s ‘lumpy blue sweater’ from the Devil Wears Prada trickled down from a designer collection, can someone enlighten me which designer inspired this creation?

I just wanted to thank the Take10 girls for the wonderful companionship in the past few months of teamwork! I guess I didn’t expect there would be so much logistics and effort required for this to run… I salute you comradesses! Do keep following the Take10 project via Twitter & Facebook!

Adiós Take 10!