The Womens Room

We love: A Collection a Day

We have moved to a new site. Do come and visit us! www.thewomensroomblog.com

Lisa Congdon is an illustrator and fine artist based in San Francisco and a prolific collector of old and unusual things. In 2010 she chronicled all of her collections in a blog called A Collection a Day, and we loved the unusual groups of objects she either arranged or illustrated. She has an amazing eye for colour and texture and manages to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Lisa now has a lovely website and Etsy shop featuring her work, as well as a book which feature images of her daily collections and photos of Lisa's home and studio in San Francisco.

We love: Hooked on houses

 

We have moved to a new site. Do come and visit us! www.thewomensroomblog.com

We love looking round other people houses, and I always say, I only joined a book group to see the other womens houses (sorry ladies, no offence!). I also love looking at Estate agents website, either nosing around local houses or fantasising about my perfect home in the country/New York/Spain etc etc.

WR reader Debora reminded me the other day about the great blog, Hooked on Houses. Written by Julia, a freelance writer who is obsessed with houses and pop culture, the blog features fabulous and hideous images from real estate listings (don't you just love the living room stuffed with bears!), celebrity homes and houses from TV programmes and movies. I was delighted to see she recently featured the houses from the teen and I's all time favourite girly Christmas film, The Holiday.

Be warned though, do not look at this blog if you have lots to do, as you could be some time.

We love: Print & Pattern (and Orla Kiely)

 

We are indebted to our mate Caroline Gardner, she of the wonderful cards and stationery, who told us about the lovely blog Print & Pattern as inspiration for well, all things printed and patterned. When we found the blog we were also thrilled to see that it told us about Orla Kiely's new book, Pattern, which we didn't know about and is out in early September. The blog also previews Orla's new range of ceramic serveware for Heals, which looks gorgeous and is out this Autumn. Don't you love it when you get two for the effort of one?

Not many words here on this blog, just lots of lovely pictures, so grab a cup of tea, put your feet up, scroll through and get inspired. 

 
Orla Kiely's exclusive to Heals crockery, pics from Print & Pattern 

We are reading: holiday blog review

I brought my computer on holiday with me, because I go into a cold sweat if I think about having to be separated from it for any length of time.  Middleagedad moaned at me for 'bloody blogging' the whole time and generally got very sniffy about the need for computers on a family holiday.

Then we got stranded. 

Suddenly, my computer, my email account and access to the BBC news and Virgin Atlantic webpages were ALL IMPORTANT and I was having to compete for access on my trusty machine. Bloody cheek I say.

Anyway, when I did finally get a chance to research a few new blogs, I found I rather liked this one.

LamBert's Hymnal 

Firstly, fessing up, I know the writer of this new food blog, he's a sweetie and altho he describes himself as 'depressed, single and of no fixed abode', I can't quite understand why, as he is excellent company and gorgeous (too young for us though ladies...) 

I love wordy blogs when they are written well and this is a crackingly funny and sharply observed comment on all aspects of the food industry, from newspaper critics (owch! by the way on A.A Gill, but So agree), to pubs of the year and your local Starbucks. As this builds up it might become a very useful place to go to before venturing out for lunch or supper. Young Si knows of what he speaks, too, as he spent ages running his own restaurant and pub.

I only hope his budget holds out,

PS, Si is also a musician and once played with the lovely Anais Mitchell, who we wrote about last week. TWR reader Nick texted to say that Anais got a 5 star review in both the Guardian and The Sunday Times this weekend for Hadestown and The Sunday Times made it the CD of the week! Of course you read about Anais here first, a whole week earlier.....

R.I.P Elspeth Thompson

We are really sad to hear that one of our favourite writers and bloggers, Elspeth Thompson has died at the age of 48. We have followed Elspeth's work for years, sharing her experiences of cultivating two unruly London allotments and how she and her family converted two railway carriages into a lovely home. She had recently started a new blog Gardening Against the Odds, which we were eagerly anticipating.

Elspeth counted herself lucky that she was able to make a career from writing about the thing she loved most, gardening. Her newspaper columns and books, reflected her passion and ability to turn the ordinary into something very beautiful.

We never actually met Elspeth, but had lovely email conversations with her and she left many complimentary comments on our blog. We were planning to feature her lovely kitchen.

She posted one of her favourite poems by Kathleen Raine on her blog in January.

I BELIEVE NOTHING

I believe nothing – what need

Surrounded as I am with marvels of what is,

This familiar room, books, shabby carpet on the floor,

Autumn yellow jasmine, chrysanthemums, my mother’s flower,

Earth-scent of memories, daily miracles,

Yet media-people ask, “Is there a God?”

What does the word mean

To the fish in his ocean, birds

In his skies, and stars?

I only know that when I turn in sleep

Into the invisible, it seems

I am upheld by love, and what seems is

Inexplicable here and now of joy and sorrow,

This inexhaustible, untidy world -

I would not have it otherwise.

Elspeth had suffering from extreme depression for several weeks and tragically took her own life. It seems so much sadder that someone who celebrated simple things in life so much and seemed so at one with nature, should die this way. Our hearts go out to her family. 

We love: Unhappy hipsters

 

While we are big fans of fabulously stylish interiors, we are also aware that perfection in our homes is more of an aspiration than a reality, as annoying things like work, family, pets and real life sometimes get in the way of 'living the dream'. 

So we LOL (laughed out loud) when we found this hilarious blog, Unhappy Hipsters. Send it to your most anal interior designer friends! 
 

Its official: We are one of the top 100 fashion bloggers

The very nice people at Style Clone have decided that we are one of the top 100 fashion bloggers from around the world. 

We started our blog to connect with like minded women and provide interesting content for women like us, who we felt were somewhat (actually make that, hugely) overlooked by the media. We were not in it for the fame or fortune (which is lucky as we make no money from blogging) we do appreciate being recognised once in while, for being good at what we do. 

It's also great to see we are starting to create exactly the kind of community that we set out to build. A group of like minded women who are not ready to roll over and give up just because they have reached their middle years, and are still keen to read about and try new things. 

We wouldn't have a successful blog if it wasn't for the readers, so thanks ladies (and men) and keep on reading.

We Love: The Selby at Colette

One of our favourite blogs The Selby (featuring creative peoples real homes) is to release a book on April 1st. To mark the launch the stunning Paris designer store Colette will be hosting a week of Selby inspired events to coincide with Paris fashion week. 

From the 1st to the 6th of March you will be able to buy copies of the book, limited edition signed prints and Selby stickers. You can drop by with your pet and the Selby will create a portrait of it, assisted by canine Oscar, the water bar labrador. Or you can check out the Selby's apartment window which will be hosted by Duotard (Mike and Jen from Hackney) who will re create their fabulous Hot Breath Karaoke, live in the window.

If you are in paris that week, we suggest you go along and take a look.

We Love: My Mom the Style Icon

We have often thought old photographs of our parents and grandparents always manage to look so much cooler than our own dodgy images. Maybe time and changing trends will help and our children will look back and think, wow, wasn't my mum amazingly stylish, but somehow we doubt it!!

One of our current favourite blogs on our ever increasing list is My Mom the Style Icon. Featuring wonderfully inspiring photographs of readers mums in their style hey days, the blog is beautifully simple and captures the style moments and stories of some truly inspiring women. It makes you want to drag out all those old photograph albums.

Shouldn't you be at school?

Last week we followed the story of 13 year old American fashion blogger Tavi with interest. Seated in the front row of the Dior couture show wearing this rather fabulous huge bow, she encountered the wrath of the Grazia fashion team, as she was obscuring their view. They Twittered (or is it Tweeted?) a picture of the back of tavi's head saying 'Dior through Tavi's pesky hat.'

Now, if you know anything about the hierarchy of fashion shows, you will know one thing. Where you sit is very important. The front row is usually reserved for the fashion super pack; big wig editors such Anna Wintour Grace Coddington, Carine Roitfeld and the like, as well as the hot celebrities of the moment. It is not usually a place for 13 year old girls, unless of course Lourdes decides to accompany Madonna on a mother and daughter bonding session ('hey mom, what shall we do today, I know lets go to a couture show!').

The question is, was it really Tavi's hat that annoyed the Grazia team, or was it their relegation to the second row, to sit behind a very small fashionable child!

Tavi's blog is a sweet, quirky take on fashion as seen through the eyes of a teenager. There is no doubt she is bright and will probably end up as a fashion designer or a journalist, but she is in no way a threat to the serious journalists out there. Was it sour grapes on the part of the Grazia team, or are they right? Why should a teenager who writes for fun, be given a front row seat?

The question of how bloggers fit into the future is a tricky one. There is no doubt we that we are part of the future. Clever and experienced bloggers know their stuff and are up there with the mainstream media. Our views will become increasingly influential as readers seek honest recommendations and opinions and our ability to post on the spot information is making some of the monthly magazines look old, as soon as they are published.

The worry for us oldies is while we know our stuff and have years of experience in our industry, some of the younger more naive bloggers, do not. They can find themselves being hailed as the 'next big thing' and courted by big brands and PR's who want to promote their products. Those of us with experience know exactly what they are up to and will only forge relationships with companies we feel an affinity with and even then, we make it quite clear from the start that despite any freebies or goodie bags (actually there aren't that many!!) we are under no obligation to write anything nice about their products. We also wouldn't write anything really horrible, we try to be constructively critical or choose to write nothing at all. The most important point of all, is that we are honest and have integrity. This video by Suzy Menkes sums it up.

On Fashionblogs from Mary Scherpe on Vimeo.

If we were asked to sit on the front row (so not going to happen) we would be incredibly flattered and a little suspicious.
Anyway, shouldn't Tavi have been at school?

Our favourite blogs: a shortlist

Bruce Nauman, as shown on the wonderful India's Posterous this New Year's Day.

In keeping with our 'keep away (a bit) from the computer screen'  ethos for 2010, we have both been trying to edit the blogs we look at each day. More than once over the holiday period I have woken up, taken my cup of tea to the computer, sat down in my pyjamas to click on a couple of my favourite blogs, when I look up it's half way through the afternoon. There are now SO many blogs and so many ways to lose yourself, we need to cut down (is blog reading the new addiction?).

So, here is the slimmed down list of blogs we each look at on a daily basis. We load them up onto igoogle, which allows you to have half a dozen blogs showing the last three postings that each one has done. V efficient. We'd love to know what yours are so let us know if you read any good ones too....

Jane's current favourites

Wee Birdy - for London shops and gorgeous things, also the prettiest blog around.

PSFK - to keep me up to date with the latest trends info.

Yarnstorm - because its gorgeous and domestic.

Spitalfields life - an insight into the history and lives of the people in one of my favourite parts of London.

What Katie Wore - I love her bright outfits and will feel bereft when they stop doing it.

Amanda's current favourites

Disneyrollergirl - DRG has great style and a sharp forward-looking eye. She's also won awards....

India's Posterous - India just finds great stuff to look at, it seems like everything she writes about is aimed at me

The Sartorialist - I never get bored here, there's always someone I wished I dressed like.

On the Runway - Cathy Horyn's (from The New York Times) brilliantly informed and considered blog on all things fashion, just look at the quality of her comments.

Belgianwaffling - for the sheer joy of the writing, she brings out my maternal instincts, I want to give here a good hug after her sad/funny Christmas posts.

We Love: Postcards from Battersea

Another shameless plug for one of our friends. We cant help it if we know so many fabulously creative and talented people! 

Sarah is a trend researcher, who researches and writes about textiles and materials. She has an amazing eye for colour, texture and pattern and spends most of her working life on the look out for inspirational textiles from around the world, and a lot of her private life on the hunt for quirky finds. Her blog, Postcards from Battersea, highlights the things she is inspired by and is a must if you are a fashion or textile designer, or just simply someone who loves beautiful things.

We love: Christoph Neimann

 

Christoph Neimann

We are big admirers of illustrators here at The Women's Room, we love Rob Ryan and hope everyone is loving our new picture of us by young artist Levanah Gates (in the top right corner of the blog) and just today we came across a gorgeous blog by illustrator, artist and author Christoph Neimann (thanks Jacqui for telling us about it! You might like to check out Jacqui's wonderful sticky tape blog, which is a master class in niche).

Christoph is an American, recently moved to Berlin and a dad of three small sons. He documents his activities with his boys (and other subjects) on his charming New York Times blog. We love the one about sleep, with acurate observations on what small children/mosquitos/noisey piping can do to a good night's sleep. We'd add age into that mix too.....The blog on his relationship with coffee is a joy to read, as is the one on New York made from Lego bricks.

The sleep illustration that caught my eye was the one about how, when Christoph finds himself going to bed before his wife on chilly nights, he warms her side of the bed first and moves over to the cold side when she gets in, because he loves her very much. Middleagedad moans nearly all the way through the winter months about how cold I am when I get into bed at night (poor circulation, my feet and hands are constantly freezing). I sent him a link to the blog and the illustration below and suggested he might like to adopted this selfless act to improve my night time temperature. So far, no comment.

Christoph's blog in the New York Times

Christoph's website (check out the sweet little pin man who taps his toes and dances when you hovver the mouse over him) 

Christoph Neimann
 
 

Come and meet us!

 

This image comes from the rather lovely mintdesignblog

The Women's Room has been invited to talk about blogging! Tonight! So if you are a loss for something to do and you are London based, come and say hello. We are part of a panel of bloggers and other experts who are going to talk about how blogs and social networking can be used in business. We're not sure we're really experts but we have lots of very strong opinions, as you all know, so discussion should be lively. I suspect we'll also be the oldest bloggers there......

The Prince of Wales Pub, Prince of Wales Road, Kentish Town, NW5 3LT. 7.00 till 8.30pm

We love: Set Design Thinking

Set Design Thinking is a beautiful blog by Bella, a Bazillian art director, featuring stunning images of interesting interiors, set design, architecture and photography from around the world.

Gorgeous!

We Love: Juicy Tomatoes.com

After our popular post on The Red Hat society, Women's Room reader Jacqueline told us about a terrific website called Juicy Tomatoes.com, written (really well) by newspaper columnist, author and broadcaster Susan Swartz.  It is a website promoting life after 50 and covers similar ground to The Women's Room but with a US readership. Susan writes about Washington, the media's approach to women over 50 , un-retirement hair colour, dancing and global women. She also comes up with a new word to describe 50plus - Ripe. We like it.

Her articles are a great read, we particularly loved learning about The Blue Thong Society (a sort-of off shoot of the Red Hat Society only different) and her critique on how the attitude towards older men and women in the media is slowly changing and a great piece on friendships. If you can't be bothered to read, then you can listen to Susan's podcasts on the site, start with the great The Grey Wars: celebrate it or cover it up? which discusses the whole grey hair issue with a bunch of intelligent women, all with different views on what to do (and what to call) ageing hair.

American boomer women are fascinating to us here at The Women's Room as they seem slightly ahead of UK women on the whole issue of changing attitudes towards age. There are more of them, obviously and there are more of them on the web, partly due to broad band being widely available in the US earlier than Europe, so they really get blogs, social networking etc, particularly since their newspaper industry is collapsing around them, but that's another blog story. 

There are some good links to other blogs, particularly Great Old Broads For Wilderness, a bunch of wrinkled wild life and country supporters who could possibly claim to be the original 'greens' by the look of things.

It's nice to know we're not alone in our quest to change attitudes, we feel a global community coming on....

Juicy Tomatoes.com

We love: Cathy Horyn's Blog

Our fashion and retail readers in the industry may already know of the knowledgeable Ms Horyn of The New York Times. She is, in The Women's Room's opinion, one of the best fashion writers in the world (we'll give you our 'top five' on later posting) and we love her because she has been observing the fashion industry (particularly in the US but not exclusively) for decades now and consequently knows of what she speaks. We love her articles in the NYT but we love her blog On The Runway more, because it's seems to be where she puts down her thoughts and general observations in a less formal and more accessible way. It's more like 'fashion chat'.

The blog has a great following and the community discussions following one of her postings is hugely informed (we think there are a lot of industry insiders writing incognito, the standard is so high) and is well worth a read if you need to know the inside track on a new designer, issues on pricing, how the NY Topshop is doing or the state of US retail, which is what the last couple of posts have been about.

We also are feeling a little smug because of Ms Horyn's recent post on the difficulties of giving up shopping (apparently shoppers at the Barneys store in New York buy stuff one day and return the goods the next because they are finding it so difficult to give up the actual act of shopping) and general retail behaviour in this downturn. You may remember that we talked about this here at The Women's Room in early January with a series of posts that started with Don't spend, sew!  and Recession, what recession?

But our showing off aside, Ms Horyn tells an interesting tale on pricing in New York (the absurd pricing drops on designer styles make it sound worth a visit despite the poor exchange rate) and how influential celebrity spending is for New York boutiques. The States is a good 6 months ahead of us on recession behaviour, as they have been in it for longer, so if this is the case, should we all hold our purses tight till prices tumble? Discuss!

Fashion & Style at The New York Times

On The Runway  

We love: Copenhagen Cycle Chic blog

 

What is it about sport that makes people think they can forget what they are wearing? The marathon is coming up, and consequently the number of runners out along the Thames tow path has increased and the stuff they are wearing is bafflingly terrible. The young can get away with lycra leggings in white, but anyone over 40 can not. Skin tight jersey for men over 50? What are they thinking? Sport can have a corrupting influence on style.

Another area we get a little tired of defending from the sporting enthusiasts is cycling. The Women’s Room loves cycling, as readers’ will know, but we potter, we don’t speed through time trials or down mountain tracks so have no need for aerodynamic neon lycra or performance Goretex with pockets at the back. We like wearing proper clothes, but when we line up alongside the enthusiasts at traffic lights, we feel a little old-school and dislike the sneers of disdain aimed at us from sweaty youths flashing nylon-clad thighs and bottoms that leave nothing much to the imagination. Macho show-offs the lots of them.

We were pleased to read we are not alone on this annoyance, the Copenhagen Cycle Chic , a blog written by Nordic cyclists, suggests wearing Comme des Garcons and heels when cycling which we thoroughly approve of. The blog is a wonderful view on proper cycling, done by normal people. It also offers a great tour guide of Copenhagen with recommended coffee shops and restaurants. There’s a view on cycling in Holland and Sweden too as well as lots of ideas on what to wear while cycling and there’s no lycra anywhere.

Here’s an extract from the Copenhagen Cycling Chic’s manifesto, which we are officially adopting as our own from now on.

 

- I choose to cycle chic and, at every opportunity, I will choose Style over Speed.

- I will ride with grace, elegance and dignity.

- I will choose a bicycle that reflects my personality and style.

- I will, however, regard my bicycle as transport and as a mere supplement to my own personal style. Allowing my bike to upstage me is unacceptable.

- I will endeavour to ensure that the total value of my clothes always exceeds that of my bicycle.

- I will refrain from wearing and owning any form of 'cycle wear'. The only exception being a bicycle helmet.

 

 

 

we wrote about cycling here and  here

We Love: London and The Big Picture blog

 

St Pauls from the air by Jason Hawkes

 

The Women’s Room is proudly based in London, which even after nearly a quarter of a century of crowded tube travel, the congestion charge, complicated recycling rules, extortionate cappuccino prices, even higher house prices and dodgy air, we still love with a passion.

 

OK so we may occasionally day dream of owning a house in the country, but it soon passes and when we see photos like these from Jason Hawkes, we know why. Jason hangs out of helicopters with his Nikon camera and MacBook to take gorgeous shots of London from the air. He even manages to make the Westfield shopping centre look beautiful, which is a real achievement (5^th photo down on the link photos below). The Big Picture blog, run by the Boston Globe website, is full of awe inspiring photo essays from around the world and is uplifting viewing.

We’re slightly twiddling our thumbs during January, browsing the web rather than stores so as not to seem overtly consumerist during this tricky time - it still feels wrong to be encouraging too much shopping. Although, like the idea of moving to the country, we’re sure it’s just a phase, particularly if it keeps snowing.

 

The Big Picture

 

Westfield shopping centre roof by Jason Hawkes

We love: Middleagedad’s blog

 

Middleagedad is something of a wonder, not only is he a great husband and dad, but he also does a good line in quirky photos that he puts up on his blog. Being a London lad, he is a big fan of the city and wonders around looking for the beauty and humour in stuff that the rest of the world fails to see.

He is currently slightly obsessed with road markings, particularly ones that are less than perfect and may be suitable for making up stories about (the traffic cone gang from December 2008 made us laugh a lot). He does the blog entirely for his family and one or two mates and posts one photo a day, often taken on one of his fitness runs, and it’s building up to be a great daily diary to look back on. Being old we often forget what we did last week let alone what the day looked like back in November and it’s great to have a gentle reminder.

 

The Women’s Room, keen diarist in our youth, wonders if the photo blog format might be a fun hobby/diary to encourage our teenagers to get into, it’s easy, free and doesn’t involve writing, something children seem to be less keen to do today ( or is it just ours?). Uploading one photo a day should be easy for them and might prove fun. An idea to remember for the next rainy weekend.

Roglog.blogspot.com