Vogue In Stitches

New Start New Glamour

Vogues China (Li Bingbing) and UK (Kiera Knightley).

Lady Like

From Vogue UK, this season's 1950s (yes, again) looks worn (with a wink of irony) by Guinevere Van Seenus and made fresh-looking by Javier Valhonrat. Perhaps the best, least literal take of this tedious trend. Very clever of Vogue UK to do it like this. Mr Valhonrat, the Spanish photographer is a favourite of mine - his pictures are painterly and romantic. He is, unfortunately underrated IMHO.

Another Month, Another Kate Cover

British Vogue, April 2010

Weekend Reading List

I'm way behind in my reading, what with the festive season and friends coming back from abroad, I've hardly had a moment to myself. I've been so exhausted that the moment I start reading, I nod off. In yet another shelf purge, BG gave me two books he knew I would love (and which he bought, but hardly read): Zadie Smith's latest, a collection of essays Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays, and Muriel Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog. I love Smith's novel On Beauty, but find it hard concentrating on some of these academic essays; Perhaps, not the right moment for reading this. The cover art is beautiful though. The latter book is set in a Paris apartment so I'm bound to find it fascinating, but I've yet start reading it, as I've just finished the slim Charles Ryder's Schooldays, Evelyn Waugh's posthumously published 'prequel' to Brideshead Revisited. This is a must for those, like me, who can't get enough of Brideshead. On that day that I met K for fish and chips (perhaps not the best choice for me since I've chosen the word 'Health' for my watchword in 2010) at Bras Basah Complex, I also picked up Bad Manners by Lisa Armstrong (Vogue UK writer) and The Collected Stories of Colette, from the National Library right next door. I love the library, and it's always a treat to hunt there. The last is a rich and inspiring feast, and I turn to Colette often, finding these audacious and seductive little gems are so right for the season.
(Picture: Matthew Goode as Charles Ryder)

Weekend Reading List

I have tonnes of stuff to read as kind friends have been gifting me books for Christmas, but that's not what I'm reading now. All that will have to wait till later, as I need to clear (obsessively) the backlog of my reading. One week day (BG has the most leave/off days of anyone I know who is gainfully employed), I went to BG's and along with four Hugo shirts, he gave me a huge bag of magazines to read and share. He would otherwise have thrown them all away (imagine BG's carbon footprint - HUGE, I'm telling you), seeing as how he hates the growing stack collecting dust on his washing machine. Dust, and now cat hairs: BG keeps a stray kitten called Charlie in the dark, glassed in kitchen.
The Time magazines I zip through quickly and then leave on the marble side table for Father. Time really has lost any urgency, and seems irrelevant now (doesn't one get all this sort of reading online?), and reminds me of waiting - in lounges and planes. Its time has come, surely? The UK Vogues I also skimmed and gave away immediately. The Men's Health sits in the toilet, and seems full of useful diet tips and motivational exercise stories - the mainstay of this magazine are how-to-get-killer-abs features and every issue has a few. Washboard abs (how banal right?) are the Holy Grail for butch girls today; It's not about health, it's about looks, and there's something drag about this. Men's Health is the Allure for men. I also share this with Father, although neither of us are likely to have those abs in this lifetime. That leaves Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia: I really enjoy this well put-together magazine (I think I've said this before) and I find it very useful for my travel column. Once I comb through one, I put it outside on top of the shoe cupboard and wait for Uncle Rubbish to take it away.