The Alice

…we went to a wedding, staying one night in a hotel and two with my mum and dad.

Elfreda looked gorgeous:

Until she poo’ed on her beautiful dress. I loaned her my fascinator to detract from the fact she’d changed into a babygrow:

She was doted on by Great Aunts and Uncles, second Cousins, Grandparents and most importantly her Uncle Josh:

Her Grandpa wore a fantastic Dickie Bow:

And with all the attention being lavished on the baby, Mum and Dad had a chance to have a drink (or 8):

In summary, we all had a very very good time and Elfie was the model baby:

I’m leaving work a week today.

I’m looking forward to leaving for all the practical reasons; the commute, the mental energy I’d rather use on packing the house up for our move, the option to lie in if I’m awake all night with Braxton Hicks. Otherwise I’m pretty scared.

Mostly I will miss the people I work with, we have a lot of fun together and I genuinely like coming into the office every day. But I’ll also really miss the cool stuff we get sent on a daily basis.

I’ve worked on projects with G -shock for two years and was always kind of sore that I was never able to get my hands on of their watches: I went through two Baby G’s (remember them?) between the ages of 14 and 18 – you were a nobody at my school unless you wore one of those bad boys on your wrist.

Imagine my delight when a box full of grown-up G-Shock watches arrived at the office; in all colours of the rainbow, I managed to get my hands on a bright red one.

I felt sixteen again. I really love chunky watches – perhaps because they make my swollen hands look smaller? Dainty timepieces are lost on me and this watch really stands out. It’s brilliant.

It’s waterproof so will be great during labour…

There will be a Casio G-Shock watch shop/underground hub of creativity opening on 24th June at the Old Truman Brewery, hosting installations from emerging artists and designers as well as displaying their product offerings. Very East London. Having attended their artistic endeavors previously I can highly recommend a visit, though of course I will be in Nottingham resting my cankles so won’t be there myself.

You can find out more on their website.

This week’s Gallery theme is ‘Still Life’ which was a tricky one for me: I don’t tend to take many photographs of inanimate objects as I prefer to shoot people (with the exception of food…) so I dug into my Flickr archive to see what I could find.

Cupcakes!!!

This photo is very representative of the changes our lives are going through at the moment: shot at my very first London Fashion Week, it is the cupcake breakfast that was served at Rani Jones’s S/S010 Presentation. It was a great day – I remember drinking three glasses of champagne before 11am. My very talented friend LouLou had teamed up with Rani to accessorize the collection and I was so excited to be around all that gorgeous clothing.

Of course, there is no LFW up in the Midlands so it’s an occasion I will have to sadly say goodbye to for now, but I wouldn’t give up our new house, baby and business for a million fashion weeks (even Paris or Milan).

My journey to work in the morning isn’t very exciting. My train goes directly into Moorgate (I get off for my office at Old Street) and carts hundreds of Lawyers, Accountants and Bankers in to their day jobs. What strikes me every morning is how miserable they all look. Black suits, black faces. I just want to shake them and tell them to CHEER UP!

I wonder what they think of me; I like to dress to express myself and would consider myself pretty feminine. I like dresses, colours, heels. I like trends, fashion magazines and style blogs. What I wear can make (or break) my confidence as it’s such an integral part of who I am – working for a magazine myself means we are all fairly style-concious and there is an non-spoken but implied work dress code (I can’t describe it, but if I had to I would probably just say ‘trendy’. It’s weird).

I notice people that stand out on the train in their appearance – as I imagine I do against the sea of corporate black and grey. Yesterday there was a woman opposite me, I would guess in her 40s, with a big bouffant hairdo and a full-length sequin trenchcoat. My first reaction was to pick my jaw up off the floor, but then I got to thinking about personal style, and how it reflects who we are and makes an impression on others. This woman had tight shiny leggings on that I initially thought were perhaps not quite right for a woman of her age, and her sequinned coat was definitely ‘out there’ – but then I realised that I am no-one to judge.

The woman looked confident. She looked happy. And isn’t that the most important thing? I’ve already said how what I wear really reflects my attitude and state of mind – as I’m sure is the case with millions of other women out there. If I think I look good, I feel a million dollars, and this woman looked like she felt a million dollars. In that instant of realisation my mindset switched from disliking what the woman was wearing – judging her, even – to having a massive respect for her.

Coincidentally, one of my favourite fashion bloggers Mademoiselle Robot wrote a post yesterday (“What is age appropriate?”) after receiving some comments about the way she dresses in relation to her age, and I was pleased to see the consensus is: as long as you’re happy, fuck em. I’ve been having some struggles with this lately as I want to keep my own style during pregnancy and into motherhood, but I don’t want people to look at me and my style differently now I’m pregnant. I like my miniskirts, I like my tight clothes; as long as I can hang on to my size 10 labels why can’t I wear them? Pleasingly Laetitia agrees. As a mum of a 2 year old herself she wore her miniskirts right to the bitter end, and as I said to her, by then I will be used to people looking at my crotch.

(Nothing like a bit of crotch smut on a Monday Morning, huh?)

Fashion week is coming up, and although I won’t be at as many shows as I can fit into one day this time – it’s amazing the stamina a champagne and cupcake breakfast can give you – I have some meetings to attend and will sneak along to the press area for the free Toni & Guy haircut and MAC goody bag. And you know what I will be wearing? My heels, miniskirt and million dollar confidence.

(Top photo snapped by me at last season’s Fashion Week. Man in skirt, heels and beard? Why not. Bottom photo is me and 2 crazy Canadian models/dancers at a party from the same Fashion Week.)