Well, I just love the contrasts of my life. One minute I am all hot and bothered at the yard, wielding clippers and covered in horse hair, and the next I am in Sketch sipping tea-based gin cocktails from delicate china cups, courtesy of The Rare Tea Company. From baggy trousers and wellies to nipped-in waist, heels and red lipstick in under two hours. Not bad.
The occasion was the launch of a new collaboration between millinery goddess extraordinaire Katherine Elizabeth and singer Shingai Shoniwa from the Noisettes, a delicious, modern-day Josephine Baker. Headgear was obviously de rigeur (not that I need an excuse), and I wore a hat I'd designed and made myself at one of Katherine Elizabeth's vintage-style millinery & tea parties, part of a friend's hen festivities back in the summer. Said newly married friend came along too, her first unescorted outing as a married lady, which, as I poured champagne down her and kept persuading to stay later and later, made me feel like a thoroughly bad influence. In a good way.
Hats and tea (ok, and cocktails), now that is heaven in a nutshell. My forties-inspired little red felt number, trimmed with black feathers, lace and net and sitting at a jaunty angle over a pin-up-girl curled fringe, turned out to be just perfect for the occasion and drew lots of admiring comments, especially when I explained it was my own creation. I teamed it with a red silk dress with cute black Scottie-dog-and-ball print and pleated collar, seamed stockings, black Louboutins and a (fake, obvs.) fur shrug, toughened up a bit with elbow-length black leather gloves. Annoyingly, I am still sans my smart phone while it is being bureaucratically repaired, and I'm stuck with a clumsy old (dis)courtesy phone that can't take a decent picture - so no photos. Unless someone has taken some and cares to share.
After months of self-imposed seclusion, a kind of social fasting, this was feasting on a spectacular scale and almost too much excitement to bear. We were serenaded by forties-style girl band the Tootsie Rollers, with whom we bonded afterwards over the joys of all things vintage and the morally uplifting qualities of red lipstick, and red more generally. They were in gorgeous, figure-hugging scarlet dresses with cut-out necklines and show-stopping, forties-screen-siren hairstyles.
Another very stylish lady in red was Henrietta Lovell, founder of the Rare Tea Co., who told me all sorts of interesting facts about tea. (Did you know that there is a small tea plantation in Cornwall, anyone?) It is always inspiring to meet someone so passionate and knowledgeable about what they do, and a sustainable business too - so hats off (well, not literally, under the circs.) I will try her wares very soon and may just have to switch my loyalties from my usual tea-merchant, Jing.
In case you were wondering, none of this is product placement. None of the gorgeous people, places and things I name-check in my blog are giving me any freebies in return (although it would be rude to refuse if they did :). When I find something especially beautiful that I get excited about, I love to share it and write about it, and that's that.
Off to see the Degas and the Ballet exhibition at the Royal Academy, followed by a riding competition at Trent Park this evening. Just when girls all over town are changing into their frocks for the evening, I shall be doing the opposite and slipping into buff jodhs, riding boots, shirt and stock and a black jacket. A life of contrasts indeed...
