The Womens Room

Chelsea Flower Show: lovely shop windows

The stores around Chelsea Flower Show do a "Chelsea in Bloom' celebration during the show period, and they are often gorgeous. This year's theme was Oriental Chelsea, here are our favourites.

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Isn't this the loveliest window? It's Jo Malone in Sloane Street and not only has she built a cherry blossom tree that comes right out of the window, but the windows themselves are full of deep drifts of cherry blossom (there's also a limited edition Sakura Cherry Blossom cologne on sale in the store). Our favourite window.

This is Emma Hope's window, which she constructed and planted herself. The plants are held in by some old slate flagstones and the store window itself has her signature sneakers sitting in sand, as if on a beach. It has a lovely home-spun feel to it.

For some time Jane has been collecting china swans, she's not sure why. Well she's not alone it seems, here's Anya Hindmarch's store window in Sloane Street, which was full of china swans supporting lovely flower displays. Great minds an' all that.

The Brora store just off Sloane Square won the prize for the most flowers in the window. The store smelt wonderful too.

These hand crafted flowers were suspended on a frame in the window of The Orange restaurant on the Pimlico Road. Each one was carefully made by chef Else-Marie and every little bit is made from sugar, and if you avoid the little bits of glue, you could eat 'em. 

Best use of often over used orchids was from the Taschen book store in Duke of York's Square. The store team had done it themselves and it had lots of charm. Sometimes the simple ideas are the best.

The Tiffany exterior looked particularly impressive on the corner of Sloane Square, with lengths of hand tied green bamboo encasing the store front. I wonder what they are doing with the bamboo sticks after the show? My tomatoes need a bit of support.....

TWR street shots: Japan

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Last week Amanda managed to avoid the freezing weather by being in Japan as part of the day job, where it was a bit warmer and sunnier. This season the Japanese have all gone crazy for padded coats; super lightweight down stuffed into an number of different shapes with a bit of quilting on top (or not). Here are some of the ones I saw.

Loved these padded fur trimmed parkas, and note please the socks above boots...lots of this on show which is not surprising since the Japanese do such amazing socks and tights.

This jacket had neat circles quilted onto it and it worked really well over this tunic dress and turned up boyfriend style jeans. The Japanses love a good hat too and this one was a bit wild....

I shot this in Aoyama, the equivalent of Bond Street and I'm guessing this jacket was expensive. I liked the drop waist and cuffed hem, sort of like a posh parka....

Somehow the Japanese look deeply cool what ever they are wearing, even when it's mixed up and quirky, they just seem to be able to pull it off (although I am talking about the girl in this photo, not quite sure about the boy...). I loved the short blue jacket and the tan accessories, and more of those nice sock/tight combinations.....

This cotton padded elbow length sleeve jacket looked perfect for wearing layered over warmer jumpers and I loved the colours she's put together, quirky but fab.

Frieze fashion part two: accessories

Amanda's favourite shoes spotted at Frieze Art Fair

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Continuing our fashion trend spotting at Frieze this year, here's what was happening with accessories...

Decorative tights. Patterned, brightly coloured, striped and lace details all livened up legs at Frieze. It was a good look when teamed with biker or heeled shoe boots and we really loved the simple stripe details on sheers. We liked the light touch of lace detail on sheer too, but weren't too sure about the lace ones mixed with the leopard print heels however, each to their own.....might work better with printed ballet flats, if you were thinking of repeating this at home...

Wild. There are always a few wild looks, things we sort of quite admire but fall short of wanting to emulate ourselves. The super high hooker boots might be a look best left in Vegas (specially when teamed with a short ra-ra skirt, as this one was) however much they might have cost and we might have worn the Vivienne Westwood shoe boots without the multi textured socks.....And school grey socks with scruffy riding boots? We're all for whacky but maybe the boots could have done with a polish to pull the look off.

Handbags. As we mentioned on the previous post, handbags were simple and bling-less (is that a word?) but still looked as if they had cost as much as the art. Loved the big black leather and canvas one worn with the pretty rick-rack skirt. Also note the great paint-splash effect jeans worn with the orange Celine (we think?) bag...I feel the need for a brightly coloured handbag coming on.

 

Frieze fashion part one: clothes

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At Frieze Art Fair this week we couldn't help but be impressed with the well groomed ladies that were admiring and buying the art. There was lots of style and a strong trend for very expensive boots and bags....not to mention fancy patterned tights (which we'll show you on Monday...too much for one post!).

Trends in brief....

Lovely coats. Nothing says style like a well cut coat, arty ladies like theirs with a bit of colour and print, a bit of embellishment and a bit of shape. I lusted after that Dries van Noten embroidered sleeve parka but I also loved the sleek boxy shape of the grey fur one worn with interesting boots.
  

Colour & pattern. Arty ladies SHOULD be good at putting colours together (although we saw a lot of black) and there were some great combinations of colour -aubergines/lilac and mulberries were popular as layering colours, and I loved the textured lace peeping out from the pencil skirt in navy...Chanel I think? 

Leopard print. I know, but it looked great in black & white as a coat - there were lots of neat printed skin coats  and bags too- and gorgeous as a cardi and top, multi layered in shades of blue with a matching ikat print bag, shouldn't work but did.

Long boots. Top trend, hands down, was for over the knee/very long/interestingly patterned boots. Worn either with tight solid colour trousers (the over the knee ones were mostly worn like this) or with knee grazing dresses. Only a small percentage wore the heels stupidly high, in fact the really high ones looked a tiny bit 'off the mark' here.

Neat, simple handbags. We saw lots of lovely, simple shaped (read 'expensive') leather bags, both small and giant size. The trend for bling-y hardware has been abandoned it seems, and replaced by minimal loveliness. There were also some really beautiful textured and embroidered ones, as you would expect from arty ladies. More of these to come on Monday's post.

Knee length. seem's like the arty ladies like their coats, skirts and dresses mostly just grazing the knee, or a touch longer (particularly if there's a pattern involved). There's a little bit of short (see above) but mostly this was on slightly younger gals. Nice when worn with patent boots.

Nice ways with cardis and blouses. Simple cardis over pretty ruffle front blouses looked very elegant, belted ones in great colours looked cute over fuller skirts. 

More to come on Monday's post.

Frieze Art Fair, on until the 17th October 

TWR streetstyle: Angela

TWR caught up with Angela this week during an ELM sample sale, where she was frantically busy selling stuff. Angela can sell anything to anyone so it's not surprising that TWR had to fall back on a couple of the Useful Excuses for Explaining Away More Clothes rules to middleagedad later in the day.

Despite being like a whirling dervish, Angela remained very chic in her Elm black slimline trousers and neatly fitted jacket, made from that nice stretchy microfibre that is so comfortable to wear and never creases.The jacket sleeves are slightly flared too which look very femine. But what makes it really work as a modern look is the white, lace-less plimsoles she is wearing, in box-fresh white. Totally practical but also really cool looking. we love it.

Streetstyle: Italian older women

Both halves of the Womens Room have been traveling this week, Amanda on holiday, somewhere impossibly glamorous (Mustique, if you must know) and I have been in Milan at Saloni (formerly known as the Milan Furniture Fair). In between perusing amazing design and beautiful furniture I have been observing the older women of Milan and noticing how well they age. 

Despite the fact the Italian diet is based almost entirely on ingredients that most Americans and diet obsessed British women would run a mile from, they all seem impossibly thin, but still manage to have a healthy attitude to food and are not afraid to enjoy the odd glass of Pinot Grigio.

Ok, I admit I was hanging out with the beautiful people of the design world, but nonetheless, many of the ordinary older women I spotted seemed incredibly elegant and well put together. They favour simple shapes in classic colours, nothing too young or 'on trend', good quality accessories and their hair and make up is always 'done'.

They are also great at the mad older lady look, I spotted several slightly scary 70 somethings sporting slightly eccentric animal print outfits and crazy glasses, but annoyingly didn't have my camera to snap them.

WR streetstyle: Sarah

We love street style blogs and reference them all the time for our day jobs, but we're a little bit tired of rarely spotting anyone over 25 on them. 

Apart from Advanced Style, Mr Mort and The Sartorialist, older stylish women are somewhat off the radar of snap happy street style bloggers. So here is the first of our very own, over 35's only, Womens Room Street style posts. 

This is Sarah, she is 43 (sorry Sarah, we didn't think you'd mind), a textile designer by trade, who now predicts colours and trends for the soon to be launched interiors and lifestyle website Stylus. 

Sarah is an expert at knowing what suits her and has developed her own unique, eclectic style (something we love). She is also a Master at advanced layering, in fact she may even have invented it!

Today she is wearing Carvella shoe boots (sadly no longer available, believe me we've tried). Fabulous printed trousers, made from fabric she bought in Tokyo, 13 years ago, an Isabelle Marant tunic top and Marni jacket (which she assure us was in the sale!). Gorgeous.