"Help me to be sensible!"

For my friend Ian's birthday this week, a bunch of us took a trip to see the live production of Brief Encounter at the Haymarket. It's truly magical. From the time you go in, it's era-perfect - a little skiffle band playing around the auditorium as you enter, uniformed attendants serving refreshments. The same people get onstage and turn out to be the cast, and then provide the intermission entertainment. It's tickle-me-pink funny and unbearably sad, and the staging is so inventive and gorgeous. If you're a Londoner, I recommend it heartily.

They are apparently taking it to Broadway, and Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick will play the leads. Ugh. I imagine Sarah Jessica Parker will relish the opportunity to be TERRIBLY! DRAMATIC! AND! OVER! THE! TOP!!!!!!!!! OH! WOE, WOE IS SHE!

Rather you, dear New Yorkers, than I.

Anyway, we thought we'd have a jollier time if we dressed up, so dress up we did. I can't really do 1940s very well, because I have neither curl-friendly hair nor pneumatic bosoms. So I went for a marcel-waved 1930s look. I know I look like Olive Oyl - it doesn't need saying, so don't say it.



And here we are with the lead actor, Tristan Sturrock. He seemed much taller onstage, but then he wasn't dressed like an emo mime at that point. Still, a very nice man, stripes or no.

Patent and silk, satin and ribbons

Four things very dear to my heart.

Unfortunately for my attempts to save in this darkest of recession-shadowed times [--Side note - is it just me that's really not gotten into the spirit of the incoming poverty panic that's sweeping the nation? Is it unpatriotic of me? Perhaps as someone in a not well-paid or secure job who is hoping to buy a house in the next 12 months, I should be hiding behind the sofa right now, but I can't shake the thought that if I just keep saving and secreting £50 notes in envelopes around my house, I'll be okay...--]

Phew! Sorry about that. Where were we?

Ah yes. My inability to keep my debit card in my pocket in the face of shiny shiny patent. I've already got a pair of nude patent shoes [and blue patent shoes... and black patent shoes...] and really didn't need these, but there was something friendly-looking about them, and when I buckled them onto my feet, my tootsies smiled and introduced themselves to the leather with surprising cheer. Plus they remind me of Chloe shoes, though I'm sure I don't know which particular style, and that makes them more appealing, being as I certainly can't afford Chloe shoes.



At this point I must apologise for the shocking photo quality. Phone photos, as my camera cable is lost in the ether, post-house-decorating. There's official photos as well so you can see what they really look like.





Until I put them on and fell in something like love, they were the fallback option for these, which are ridiculous.



I never thought I'd succumb and buy something as patently [ho ho] ridiculous as satin shoes ["Ughhh! RUIN my satin shoes, why don't you?!?!?"}, particularly a pair of open-toed monstrosities spewing forth a froth of silk ribbon at the ankles, but then, I'd never seen these.

I can't work out whether they're pretty or pretty horrific. I've got 21 days to make up my mind, but unless I invite all my friends around to my house to help me with the decision, I'll have to decide on my own, because once I touch them to outdoor concrete I'm stuck with them.



For now, though, I love them.

Also, they have patent heels and ribbon-ends and a teensy-weensy little bar of patent over the toes. It's like a textural free-for-all... patent and satin and silk, oh my!



I think I would like to try living in the eighteenth century, when I think my taste in shoes would have been highly regarded throughout the land.

Thank you, Kurt Geiger. Thank you, Carvela.

P.S. Within my own, slightly oval sphere of logic, I can justify buying two pairs of shoes at once, because I also bought a book of sheet music this week for Chopin's nocturnes, and once I learn to play them all, my soul will be repaired and I will be a worthy individual again.

'The other woman has fresh-cut flowers in her room...'

What fashion-enthusiastic woman doesn't want a dressing room of her own? Somewhere to shut herself away from the world, surround herself with her most beautiful possessions and style herself as she wants to look.

Old novels and period films always make me hanker after such a thing. The only modern movie I can remember that celebrated the dedication of personal space and time to one's wardrobe was Clueless - everyone remembers Alicia Silverstone's modern miracle of a computer that mixed and matched her outfits for her, and that ridiculous circular, colour-coded closet. It was a bit Clarissa Explains It All though.

What I'm really talking about is Glenn Close, stalking about her mirrored and gilted rooms in Dangerous Liaisons, exuding puff powder and spiritual venom. Emily Mortimer in Bright Young Things, hiding behind the telephone in her beautiful apartment with its interior railings and curved walls, covering her eyes in glitter and kohl. Colette's aging but still graceful Lea, with the incorrigible Cheri running amok within the walls of her home.

missbondage's post on The High Street reminded me of it, as did the photos of Dita Von Teese's vanity room in Fur Coat, No Knickers.

This is mine - it's an optimistic mess, marred by awful yellow and terracotta [!] walls [not my doing], dodgy laminate flooring [also not my doing] and a woeful lack of space. The redeeming features [beautiful old wooden furniture, pretty trinkets, my desperation for it to be better than it is] fight frantically with the sheer dreadfulness of the room.



[Two] [more] images

Interior design blog Brilliant Asylum provided me with plentiful inspiration though.




From Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day - I shall certainly be seeing this, as much for the magnificent Frances McDormand as the delectable set design
[Images: IMDB.com]





Katie Lee Joel's dressing room in New York. Covered in gilt. Gosh.
[Images: Town & Country]

I've been inspired to take action. I will blitz my sorry looking 'other room' with paint and whatever gilt, crystal and lacquer I can lay my hands on [albeit in moderation - there's only so much a small room can take].

I WILL surround myself with beauty. I will.