Posts from July 2015

Hair-Do

July 9, 2015

“Embrace messy hair,” is a mantra of mine. It’s not that I don’t own a hairbrush, I just rarely use one. Much to my mother’s chagrin, I rarely wear my hair down either. Instead, it lives in a messy knot on top of my head, held together by a tatty elastic. I just don’t care enough about how my hair looks to bother with straighteners and serums and fuss and faff. Sometimes though, I’ll catch a glimpse of myself in a shop window and see how lumpy and bumpy and lopsided I look, and I’ll think, good gosh woman, brush your hair. And so I go home and do just that. And then scrunch it into a messy knot again.

Ear-To-Ear

July 8, 2015

It feels like yesterday, that my Mum and I were sitting in a cafe across the road from Harrods when she handed me a small red box with gold earrings in the shape of bumble bees inside. “But I don’t have pierced ears,” I said. “You will in about ten-minutes,” she said back. Harrods is a pretty grand place for an eleven-year-old to get her ears pierced, although I can’t remember a thing about it. It’s only the bees that I remember. It was a good few weeks before I got to wear them, and gosh, did I love them. As I moved into my teens it was silver hoops, peace signs and tragicomedy masks that I wore mostly. There was a brief flirtation with ornate chandelier earrings, and then came the diamond studs from my grandparents at age-18. Those I wore for years. It’s been a long time since I’ve worn earrings, so long, that I’m not sure my ears are still pierced. It’s funny how getting my ears pierced was this rite of passage to feeling like a grownup, and yet now, at age-37, all I want are clip-ons! Not just any clip-ons, mind you. These Suzanne Belperron honeys will do nicely, merci very much. As Erika Bearman (aka OscarPRGirl) once said, “I‘ve always thought it was sort of a glamorous thing to take off one of your big fantastic earrings to talk on the telephone.”

Bottoms Up

July 7, 2015

The first chair we ever bought was a Finn Juhl upholstered in a tangerine microsuede. When we moved from Kensington Market to Robert St., with not much furniture, the Finn Juhl more than held its own in an otherwise empty living room. But then came the Eames lounge chair in a well-worn butter-soft brown leather to keep it company. That chair we got for a steal from an antique dealer from Casablanca who used to have a shop on King Street. It was through Roberto that we also acquired our next chair –– a dainty occasional chair with fine brass bones and a Dijon yellow chenille seat cushion. When Iole was born, we moved away from the mid century silhouette, to a more traditional, English looking armchair for her room, refashioned by the creative folks at Anthropolgie in a faded parrot print fabric. For our next chair, an orange wrought iron garden chair, I had a seat cushion made out of some Josef Frank fabric we received as a wedding gift. If I had to choose a favourite, that might be it. But then there’s our most recent chair, a wing-back upholstered in pink and yellow ikat with jaunty wooden legs that we’re all potty about. The truth is, I adore each one for its uniqueness and for the story woven into its seat cushion. So many bottoms, so many tales. Plus, our chairs are shining proof of my design credo –– surround yourself with things that you love, and it will all come together.

Havana Hour

July 6, 2015

“The house is beautiful,” says Pamela Ruiz of the social hotbed that she shares with her artist husband, Damian Aquiles. “But it’s what goes on inside the house that’s important.” Artists flock to the couple’s villa in Havana’s Vedado neighbourhood to feast on ideas and paella, drink cocktails and dance the night away. The parties are legendary. This room here, with its melon pink mid-century chairs and faded wallpaper that predates the revolution, takes my breath away. I can’t imagine how many cultural luminaries have flopped into those chairs.

Bag Lady

July 3, 2015

One day, when the contents of my bag is not snotty rags, sticks and crayons, I will return to using something other than a cloth tote. There is the Goyard in sky blue, the Prada in a light cornflower, and the perfect little vintage Pucci in enough colours to start a rainbow. And that’s just the start. My bag collection is vast to enough to open a shop. And yet, with a cotton pouch in hand, and a canvas tote on my shoulder, out I go into the world, everyday. That doesn’t mean I don’t window shop, mind you. These handcrafted leather bags from Strathberry of Scotland are definitely on the list of, ‘things I wouldn’t shove a dirty nappy into.’ They’re beautifully crafted, (some take up to 14-hours to make) simple in design and available in a variety of classic colours. Put my name on the list. I’ll be there in about three to four years.

Powder Your Nose

July 2, 2015

The guest loo should be the most fanciful room in the house –– a veritable cabinet of curiosities and showcase for all that you are, and aspire to be. After all, where else in the house do friends and strangers get to snoop around at leisure? Give those nosy parkers a penny for their thoughts, with a picture wall of old family photographs, a vintage milk crate stacked with Camus and Chekhov (or any other literary great you want people to think you’ve read) a windowsill of scents you love and a soap that smells of the beach. If I had a powder room, it would be wallpapered in Colefax and Fowler’s hot air balloons with a honeycomb tiled floor the colour of an aqua marine. Hand towels would be a mixture of antique linen and Missoni zigzag and the soap on hand would be Santa Maria Novella. Reading material (hanging on the back of the door in a wicker bicycle basket) would include AFAR, Vogue, Us Weekly and Barbie. And in a small silver dish behind the toilet, guests would find matches from hotels we’ve stayed at around the world. Nothing like a visit to the loo to get the conversation cracking, wouldn’t you say?

Canadiana

July 1, 2015

I’ll always choose a kaiki over a canoe, but since Canada is my chosen home, I’ll admit to my fondness for the quintessentially Canadian boat. Few things spark up a patriotism in me like the image of a red canoe harnessed to the spine of an unpretentious, beaten-up, old station wagon. A few streets north of me, on the quiet, tree-lined streets of Seaton Village, one such car/canoe exists. I imagine a family piled in with a boot full of beers, bacon, potato chips and bug spray, ready for a weekend of swimming, canoeing and marshmallow roasting. If I ever see them, I may just jump into the backseat with the kids and retrievers. What an adventure that would be. Happy Birthday Canada, thank-you for having me.

La Parachute

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