Dinner with Designmarketo!

We jumped at the chance to go to dinner with Designmarketo last night - luckily booking tickets in advance to this as it was completely sold out when we got there. Not only are they super friendly and clearly passionate sbout what they do, but they always put on a good spread. And as the saying goes, they didn't disappoint. After demolishing our bread 'volcano' courtesy of designer Olivia Decaris,


we moved on to a succession of light spring and shoots inspired courses - pink grapefruit and pomegranate salad, shots of different fresh soups (the carrot, coriander and coconut was the winner in our table popularity stakes),

haddock for main, and an incredible pannacotta with rhubarb for afters. Coffee was served on an edible sesame seed brittle saucer (designed by Hina Thibaud)


which also went down a treat. All utensils, water jugs, glasses and lighting was on show either for sale or promise of some future development. All in all a lovely evening with good company and set of course in the strangely alluring concrete maze that is the Barbican.

Liberty windows

LOOK! at Liberty's beautiful new windows for their furniture and lighting department! Once again making brilliant use of the small space available, they've been able to completely tile one in updated Delft blue tiles, and flood another with sunflower seeds. Very simple and beautiful and for the new homo-wners amongst us some lovely furniture porn on display. Windows in conjunction with amongst others the V&A's Cult of Beauty exhibition which opens April 2.

Corrie Neilsen at the Design Museum

Hats, dresses and everything else off to Corrie Neilsen, winner of the 2010 Fashion Fringe competition, who has just launched an installation in conjunction with Fashion Fringe,and the Design Museum at the Design Museum tank and Atrium spaces down by the Thames. Designed and built by the Selfridges window display department, some of Corries more beautiful pieces are shown alongside some of her patterns, fabric, sketches and inspirational images, as well as some of your more basic tools of the trade. We were on hand to get a few pictures of the work as it happened. We really enjoyed Corrie's presentation at Fashion Week a fortnight earlier, and it's great to get a glimpse into her creative process- it'll be in the tank until 15 May.

Selfridges at work...




...and the finished pieces

Bright Young Things 2 at Selfridges

Are the second lot as good as the first? Even better we think!

Rhea Thierstein

Jessica Dance

Yang Du

New Power Studio

Today at Kempton Antiques Market

Robbert Mapplethorpe: Night Work at Alison Jacques

Alison Jacques presents their latest collection of rarely seen work by Robert Mapplethorpe, alongside some more famous pieces, and thematically related pieces by various other artists including Matthew Barney, Glenn Ligon, and one of our very favourites Banks Violette. Following on from the incredible Patti Smith-related show last year, this one is curated by Scissor Sisters who used a Mapplethorpe image for the cover of their most recent album, it's an interesting mix and worth a good look when the place is less full! As the opening we went to last night was completely rammed. Last night was also a launch party for the gallery's new space and offices down the road on he other side towards Goodge St - so make sure you check out both spaces if you go.

Underground Opulence at the Tate

We were excited to make it to a Fashion In Film screening at the Tate Modern on Friday night. The house was fairly packed and everyone seemed excited though perhaps like me wondering what to expect - though I was just excited to finally see Jack Smith's legendary Normal Love in all its glory. Before that however we were treated to a handful of silent whimsical shorts, each accompanied by some rather jaunty live piano - my favourite had to be Tit for Tat, Gaston Velle's butterfly fantasy from 1907 - though another from 1907, The Pearl Fishers, again from France, had beautiful sets - though we had to laugh at some of the hilarious costumes - the key theme here for these early silents was their pioneering use of visual effects to create these vivid fantasy environments.

On to Normal Love then, which was as absorbing as I hoped - no dialogue, but a series of songs from all over the place roughly synced over the top, including some amazing Egyptian/ Arabic style music. The various set pieces blended into one another of the course of the two hours of the film included a mermaid's milk bath grotto, a post party boardwalk, glittering bodies strewn everywhere, and a filthy swamp, where our mermaid tried in vain to resist a beefy suitor. Beautiul costumes, and the colours! Just beautiful. And to think back then these films were made for nothing, and for no-one but the maker and his friends and cast - brilliant.




The 3rd Fashion in Film Festival : Birds Of Paradise continues at the Horse Hospital, Tate Modern, Barbican, and BFI Southbank, until 12 December.

(Photos from various places - the still of the green mummy from Normal Love, the double exposure of the woman from Ron Rice's Chumlum, and the final one from a Smith fan site)