A Life Less Ordinary

Lyndylooloopops

 

To Lyndylooloopops on the 33^rd anniversary of becoming a mum…

You…

• Gave up more than I will ever know, including your career as a textile designer, to raise and give us both the best start in life possible.
• Spent hours teaching me how to read, by patiently recreating sentences using home-made ‘flash cards’ from cornflake boxes.
• Promised yourself when I was born that you would always tell me I was beautiful and would never criticise me. This has given me unparalleled self-confidence and only hope I can instil the same confidence in my own children.
• Inspired and encouraged my interest to pursue a career in fashion from an early age. And because of you, I knew exactly what I always wanted to do from the age of eight. Not many people can say that.
• Know me better than anyone else and continue to teach me important life lessons. The most recent being that ‘people are more important than things’.
• Bought me my first Prada bag when I was 18. And have even more shoes than me (an impressive collection).
• Should be welcomed by Fidel Castro every time you go to Cuba, considering you’re probably their most frequent visitor and investor in local tourism.
• Are still my first phone call when I have any news. And my first text when I land in a foreign country.
• Have already insisted that your grandchildren must never, ever, refer to you as ‘Granny’. Even though the mere hint of any grandchildren is a long way off.
• Always stood by me, giving me the confidence to believe in myself and rise above the bullies who made secondary school a miserable place to be.
• Had to he held back by dad from dropping everything and rushing to our side when we had our car crash in Arizona. Instead you arranged for us to convalesce at Lucy’s in Miami (safe in the knowledge we were at least with family).
• Taught me how to be frugal and economical when it came to day to day purchases, and instead save the cash for the things that are important in life; nice houses, holidays, shoes and handbags.
• Have extraordinary organisational skills and love to host amazing parties. Be it catering for a summer garden party for 50 or one of your many festive lunches in the run up to Christmas. Huntingdon Road parties are known to be legendary due to the effort you and Dad put in (especially when you get a noise pollution complaint from the council).
• Have a wonderful collection of original Biba that you saved up for as a teenager and are slowly donating to my own mini collection.
• Never minded that your home became the weekend ‘drop in centre’ for noisy teenage sleepovers and late night post-clubbing munchies all the way through the 90’s.
• Taught me from an early age that being different was a good thing. This was a tough lesson; no one wants to stand out when you’re a young teenager, but thanks to you, I’d sooner stand out in the crowd than blend in.
• Know more about fashion and the latest trends than I do, even though my career means I’m immersed in the industry and always working 12 months ahead.
• Always make sure we have an amazing Christmas, ensuring the fridge is fully stocked, the champagne is flowing and the beds made for the constantly changing guests, waifs and strays you welcome into your home every year.
• Selflessly put your life, including your job, on hold for nearly a year to move in with and look after Granny when she had cancer. That time you spent with her meant more to her than we will ever know.
• Are a caring, generous and deeply loyal friend. This sometimes means you get hurt, but you have always taught me it is better to be generous with your time and love than to be selfish.
• Are beautiful, very intelligent, have a wicked sense of humour and an adventurous spirit that I like to think I’ve inherited.
• Maybe don’t know this, but all my friends think you’re the coolest mum (and I do too).
• Are someone I would have loved to have met before you were my mother.

You are an inspiration to what I can only hope to be one day.

All my love, AD xx

 

 

 

Tokyo Neighbourhoods

Oh my. This jet lag is insane. Woke up at some ungodly hour, despite my attempt to chemically induce sleep and after pottering around in the hideously overpriced gym, thoroughly reading all Tweets and deleting some work emails, I ventured to the breakfast buffet (which should be banned, as I have no idea when to stop) and then was forced to kill an hour and a half at Starbucks in Shibuya, waiting for the stores to open. Not so bad though, my view was the below and whilst nursing my third caffeine hit of the day (at 8am) I watching the commuters battle the famous Shibuya crossing. From an anthropological point of view it was fascinating; everyone obediently waits until the exact point when the green man is flashing, everyone. There is absolutely no jay-walking. Even when there is no traffic; amazing. 

Having realised mid-flight that I had forgotten my Lonely Planet and then reminding myself how there are no subway maps in English, I hastily joined the queue of giggling school girls standing outside Tower Records (5^th floor; apparently the only English book store in SW Tokyo) to secure a copy of Time Out, but only after elbowing my way through the crowds; it appears I timed my visit with the same day as the launch of the Japanese Boyzone’s new album. I hopped skipped on the JR line to Shinjuku, where I was greeted with the below… Not quite as impressive as it is on an eve, but still a myriad of fonts, colours, noises and crazy little cars, punctuated with vending machines dispensing coffee-in-a-can on every street corner.

 

Whilst waiting for another bloody store to open (the stores open at 11am, apparently, in Shinjuku) I discovered a wonderful shop with very strange oddities such as these… 

Yes, they are French maid's outfits… And adult-sized school girl outfits. Wrong. But the photo that makes me laugh out loud whenever I see it (and made me gasp with horror when I saw them FOR SALE) has to be this:

Yes, that is a man, he is shaven and that's just the start of the wrong-ness... 

I was tempted to buy some of the below (having allergies myself), but I don't think I could summon up the courage to wear them in public and they would only end up festering dust in a drawer, along with all the other Japanese oddities I have bought over the years. I can't even fathom how they came up with the idea....

Onto Harajuku next. I'm in love with the sugary smelling Hello Kitty café next to Kiddyland; the line of school girls munching on the cookies directly opposite unfortunately wasn't captured, and I'm kicking myself now for not asking if I could take a photo of them. As a child I drove my mother mad for anything Hello Kitty, and even in my 30's the fascination hasn't waned.

Harajuku never fails to turn up some incredible pieces...

 

Yes, that is a Buzz Lightyear necklace, a My Little Pony brooch, and those are Barbie heads as ring and shoe trinkets. Tres odd.

Off the main drag, Omotosando in Harajuku, I found myself wandering around back streets perusing Billionaires Boy’s Club and A Bathing Ape  (I have no intention of buying anything - not my style - but their wares are incredible and the retail experience is second to none). The slightly more upmarket Beams and  Porter did have a good going-over, although I'm saving pennies right now. 

Further into Omotosando and Tokyo architecture really does come into it's own. This photo doesn't do the incredible Prada building justice, but it has a James Bond style tunnel entrance at the side (which I've tried to capture) and is super cool inside. I love it. And all of the contents. 

 

Next onto the upmarket Ginza, where you need a fat wallet and pearl necklace as standard. Abercrombie have recently moved into this neighbourhood, as have Zara, H&M and now Uniqlo have a new men's concept store; the High Street is invading what was once an exclusive street wall to wall with European designer brands. This isn't such a bad thing.

Having been about all day to the point where I feel as if my feet have been bound and I've been walking on wooden sandals, I now have a sufficient amount of tat  and curiosities to bring back to the UK to pacify curious friends. I’ve just been called by my US counterpart who called to say she's arrived safely (thanks for that) and do I want to meet for dinner (um, maybe?)

Dinner tonight (unless I can muster up the courage to be social – perhaps not) will be another round of unidentified vegetables from the local 7-11 (the only thing I KNOW doesn't have shellfish in), washed down with  an over-sweetened orange juice and some sweet bread stuff (sweet flavoured bread, not sweetbreads...)

I may even be able to see past 9pm tonight. That is if I can figure out how to use this:

Please let me sleep through the night tomorrow is a big day.

Sayonara.  

Back to the Floor

 

This week saw the launch of the much anticipated “+J” Jil Sander x Uniqlo collection. It also meant I have spent very little time in my bed and now need to be reacquainted with it.

Wednesday night was spent clearing fixtures, vacuuming dust bunnies (with my new Ghostbusters-style backpack vacuum cleaner), counting rubber tiles, and realising at 2am that we didn’t have enough rubber tiles, making executive decisions to reduce the number of said rubber tiles and therefore the footprint of the +J area, and pacifying Jil Sander’s Visual Merchandising team, who had been sent over to ‘keep an eye on things’.

Little did I know the very same spot I was vacuuming at 11pm, would be where I will stand in ten hours time, surrounded by very wealthy middle-aged women, with more gold jewellery than Liberace and a Hermes bag for every day of the week, baying for my blood and fighting over the last light grey cut out fitted jacket..

Launch day and I was dog tired, but running on pure adrenalin – and the promise of my Hawaiian holiday in a week’s time. The queue started forming from 8am with two very excited lovely ladies, who were die-hard Jil Sander aficionados and promised 'we're here to buy stuff for us, not put it on eBay!' - I didn't even question... They were quickly joined by a lady who had flown down from Scotland for the occasion (that’s fashion dedication for you), and then a hoard of extremely well dressed architects, designer and doctor-looking types. Safe to say, I think the queue alone boosted the average demographic of Uniqlo customer up by a few socio-economic, and salary, grades.

The doors opened an hour early and it was soon apparent that the earlier request to help out from the retail operations team quickly turned into an ‘all hands on deck’ demand. Everyone was drafted in, including our CEO who’s face flitted between utter joy (meeting target) and sheer panic (running out of product) throughout the course of the day. Meanwhile, the ecommerce team were busy balancing the tricky task of taking phone calls from exasperated customers trying to log on to the website, whilst at the same time, trying to stop the website from falling over and crashing, as anyone outside of London tried to log on and buy the product.

Although I was dreading the thought of having to deal with customers (having heard so many horror stories from various store managers over the year, putting myself at the mercy of customers on the busiest day since the brand opened in 2001, was not top of my agenda), I actually realised I wasn't a bad sales girl, and instead I found myself rising to the challenge of trying to flog as much gear as possible. Never having worked in retail before (the weekends of my youth were spent serving cakes and petrol, although never together), I soon learnt the oldest trick in the book; wear a short dress and high heels, then position oneself in the menswear department. Easy prey. I reckon I banked a few grand alone.

All in all, the +J FW09 collection launch, thankfully, was a huge success – beyond all expectations and of course, all thanks to a phenomenal marketing and PR campaign… ;-) Our CEO is delighted, targets were made in the first two hours of trade and even though the website crashed, it still managed to achieve 2000% of average daily takings.

I have been pretty much working on this for the last 12 months and now it’s over, I feel as if I have just given birth – although I have nothing to show (we’re not allowed to buy the collection. Don’t ask…) Now the hype is dying down, I worry; if pretty much every publication wrote about the collaboration this time around, will they be that interested in four months time when we start the PR bandwagon again? Time will tell.

 

 

 

Ten Years On

Ten years on; an anthropological study of Oceana.

Last night’s visit to Oceana in Kingston, for a friend’s annual trip home from Australia, has given me an insight into a) how much has changed in ten years from when I would have frequented such a place, and b) how little has changed.

The air is still thick with insecurity, desperation and expectedness of what the night may bring, although the layer of cigarette smoke that would have once hung from the Titanic-esq ceiling has been replaced with the smell of fake tan and Lynx.

Tits and Teeth are the order of the day as Cheryl Cole wannabes pour their bodies into a collection of parrot-coloured, ill-fitting dresses (at least we’re safe in the knowledge they’re keeping Bay Trading and Jane Norman in business), overly fake tanned carrot legs are supported by equally colourful platform hooker-heels and bleached blonde hair, straightened to within an inch of its life, perfectly compliments the excessive make-up.

The boys aren’t much better; deep v-neck t-shirts, skinny ties and waistcoats help them resemble an X Factor audition line-up, with most looking as if they have run through TopMan covered in superglue.

The girls (as always) are the first to head to the dance floor, charged with potent cocktails of vodka and Red Bull and resembling newborn foals unsteady on their feet. Mobile phones in one hand, clutch bags and digital cameras in the other, they huddle around to Facebook (read: stalk) boys they’ve just met. This facade of sophistication and confidence rapidly descends to dancing barefoot, stumbling into each other and waving their hands in the air to SClub7. Nothing changes there.

A few brave males grace the dance floor before midnight, trying their luck on the still relatively sober girls. I use ‘grace’ in the loosest of forms; they are merely shuffling whilst being careful not to spill their bottle of San Miguel… “it’s Spanish, innit?” was overheard at one point. Why they don’t just go in for the kill later when the girls are far easier prey, I have no idea. This is something men never learn.

The alpha-females are still left untouched; men assuming (quite rightly) they are out of their league, yet those brave enough to take a chance are shot down with one killer look as allies rally around to protect their leader. These girls are generally waiting for the next footballer; no call-centre supervisor would have a look in, even if he spends most of his weekend down the gym honing his well oiled body and used to be the coolest kid in school back in the day.

The queue for the ladies never changes, it’s always obscenely long, but neither does what goes on inside. Girls still cram themselves two by two into cubicles, sniping sideways comments about who’s wearing what and who slept with who last week. Rimmel lipstick and Juicy Tube lip gloss is applied and reapplied, faces mattified and false eyelashes glued back on. The only new addition, aside from the sex-toy vending machine (seriously), is a coin operated hair straightener (of which there was a queue by 11:30pm) which, if I was still into over-straightened hair, isn’t such a bad idea.

Really not a lot has changed from when I was 18. And I’m not that surprised. The pick-up techniques haven’t changed; girls still stare directly ahead at the bar, trying not the catch the eye of the shy guy standing next to her desperate for her to glance in his direction so he can attempt a conversation (NB: these are usually the guys worth talking to; their flashier counterparts on the dance floor will be later seen down a back ally with the local bike). The technology of course makes a difference; at least we can now pretend to be engrossed in a text message whilst waiting for the inept bar staff to serve us a seven quid vodka and tonic in a plastic glass (no ice, no lemon).

The drink du jour will change, the music will change and rarely will you see a group of girls without at least one face lit up by the screen of her mobile phone as she masters the art of TUI (Texting Under the Influence), but the boys will still think that pawing a girl, sliding their hands onto her waist and slurring into her ear will guarantee a snog. It didn’t work in 1999, it’s not going to work now.

 

 

 

Lessons to be learnt

Notes to a 10 year old me

• You don’t have to finish everything on your plate; despite what Mum tells you. This is a lesson easier to learn sooner rather than later.
• Don’t eat too many sweets. Seriously. You’ll end up with a big bum for the rest of your life.
• You might want to start being good at sports at school – this goes back to the 'not eating too many sweets' lesson.
  
• It’s always better to be different, no matter how hard it is at school. Be proud of your Mum, she really is amazing and anyway, the other girls are only jealous their mothers aren’t as cool.
  
• Don’t take any notice of the nasty girls at school, I promise you they will all be pushing prams by the time they’re 18; whereas you have a life of adventure and excitement ahead of you.
  
• Spend more time with Grandpa Max; he won’t be around for much longer and you’ll miss him more than you realise when you’re older.
  
• Don’t be so mean to Ed. He is the best brother in the world.

Notes to a 16 year old me

• Listen to Mum and Dad; they’re pretty smart and will be an incredible constant source of inspiration and support through your life.
  
• Don’t cut your hair short; despite everyone saying it’ll look thicker, it doesn’t suit you. Oh and go blonde earlier. That does suit you.
  
• Wear mini-skirts for as long as you have the legs - whatever age you are.
  
• Don’t drive Ed’s go-kart after drinking three glasses of champagne this summer. You will go through the garden fence and end up in A&E for three days with a piece of wood lodged into your skull.
  
• That guy you’re going to meet next year isn’t ‘the one’. So please don't waste seven years trying to figure it out.
  
• Always use sun screen, don’t wear too much makeup and don’t over-pluck your eyebrows.
  
• Go travelling when you finish university, don’t wait two years or let your boyfriend hold you back. You’ll have more fun when you’re younger. Having said that, if you do go travelling when you’re 24, you will have an incredible experience and will come back a more confident and stronger person. Just make sure you say a proper goodbye to Grandma before you leave; you won’t see her again.
  
• Make sure you always stay in touch with Christine; she will be the most constant and honest friend throughout your life. You will be her bridesmaid, godmother to her son and she knows you better than anyone.
  

Notes to a 21 year old me

• Your twenties will be a hot-bed of insecurity, worry and pressure; but don't worry, everyone else is going through the same issues.
  
• Your thirties will be more relaxed and fun, but be warned everything really does start to sag and wrinkle.
  
• The good news is that you’ll be a marketing manager for an international fashion brand before you are 28; travelling the world and meeting fascinating people. The ‘bad news’ is you won’t be married, a mother or even be engaged by the time you’re 30, but neither will most people around you. You’ll be having too much fun to worry about that anyway.
  
• Don’t rush to find a boyfriend. But when you do meet someone, make sure you’re with him for the right reasons and remember to listen to your initial doubts; they will eventually become the reasons for breaking up.
  
• Don’t be in such a rush to get to Arizona from Las Vegas on the day after your 25^th birthday. You will be involved in a serious car crash on Route 101 and nearly die. Oh and don’t get Ed to call mum to break the news, call her yourself.
  
• When you meet Luke Perry at the Superbowl party, be cool. Don’t gush about how much you have fancied him since you were 11. This is not cool.
  
• Brush up on celebrities before you work at Selfridges; in particular Dustin Hoffman. You don’t want to refuse him entry to a party just because you don’t recognise him. Again, this is not cool.
  
• Make the big step and buy that house in London. As scary as it may seem at the time, it will be the best investment of your life to date. It will open up your life to new social circles and you will have the best few years of your life living there. 
  

Notes to a 30 year old me 

• It’s better to be over dressed than under dressed.
  
• Don’t try to please all the time. But always stay true to what you believe in.
  
• When it comes to friendship, always go for quality rather than quantity.
• Don’t expect too much from your friends, some will hurt you and let you down. But those who don’t are true friends.
  
• Always try to understand what makes people behave a certain way.
  
• Believe in yourself, you are stronger than you realise.
  
• Always know when it's time to move on and listen to what Dad says; "it's best to leave a party early, rather than hang around to the bitter end."
• And finally, stop worrying; it’ll all work out in the end.
  

 

 

 

Excessive?

Six pairs of shoes (three of substantial height and therefore only deemed as evening shoes) for a two week backpacking holiday in Thailand. Some might say excessive. I'd say essential.

Also ready to pack:

• Three classic novels I will probably never read, but at least they'll make me look intelligent(ish) on the beach.
• Four bikinis. Say no more.
• Fairy wings, glitter wand and marabou feather tiara for Freddie's hen night.
• One frock for Freddie's big day.

What is most worrying though is the fact I need to squeeze all of the above (oh and a lot more) into the backpack you can just about see under the excessive footwear attire.

Oh to be turning right upon entry to the A380 and have a 50kgs baggage allowance. 

Straight out of the 80's

Today I christened my original 1980's lime green Moon Boots.

According to The Times this morning they "only look silly if you don't wear them with confidence."

I shall strut and wear them with pride. And confidence.