Hairy Fairytales

One lazy weekend afternoon in March, we headed into Soho to view Alice Anderson‘s exhibition, Time Reversal. Walking on Beak Street, you will be struck by the odd sight of seeing hair falling over the front of this building in Soho like a heavy curtain. Like a supersized, modern version Rapunzel-esque tale, this installation draws you in.

Inside 1000s of metres of dolls’ hair shoot out from the fireplace and fill the room. The auburn hair catches the sunlight beautifully and you will end up standing and staring at this web of hair and admiring how beautiful and golden it looks in the sun.

It makes for a slightly eerie, and most definitely captivating sight. Like a freak show, you are invited to see the rest of the exhibition for a pound. Upstairs there are various sculptures featuring a doll theme and creep downstairs you can watch the 9 minute film which is part of the exhibition, The Day I Became A Doll.

For me, the exhibition’s biggest draw was the hair installation. The film  with its references to gothic horror (which I love) and a study on the mother-daughter relationship, was a bit contrived. This exhibition runs until 24th April so catch it in the Riflemaker Gallery before it ends. Believe me, it makes a nice escape from the madness of the city centre being in a room of hair.

Speaking of escaping, I went to Kensington Palace for the Enchanted Palace exhibition. Drawn by its poster and by the designers involved including Vivienne Westwood, Boudicca and Stephen Jones, I took a bite. A poisoned apple it wasn’t, but it was slightly disappointing. Mainly because with magical fairytales, it is easy for the imagination to take over and reality, even with the help of digital projections and theater sets, will never match that of the mind!

Having said that, there were quite a few things I loved in the exhibition. The tear jars on display were magnificent and I left lusting after  jewel-encrusted apple headband and the paper dress by Echo Morgan in the Room of the World

Photos below are via Style Bubble as photography was not allowed in the exhibition.

It still made for a fun afternoon which ended with a berry meringue served with thick cream and fresh berries in The Orangery.

London. I love how it’s so easy to disappear into a modern day fairytale here.

Wide Eyed

I discovered this amazing website yesterday, a real treasure trove, full of delights especially so if you have to buy a present for a baby. Bianca and Family also restore furniture. Look at the beautiful school desks that were featured on Apartment Therapy.

The magnets above reminded me of a few things which I’ve seen that are as kitsch and I love. I went to Saigon earlier this year and spotted the selection of toys below.

Last week I went to see Walking In My Mind and was delighted to look into Yoshitomo Nara‘s student shack and his display of toys and dolls.

What I really want to get is these earrings from Les Nereides‘s diffusion line, N2 which are also available as a brooch and cute hair grips.

But if wearing kitsch is not for you, there is always decoration. This wallpaper from Nono fits the bill.

Or buy this beautiful tree designed by Millicent & Frank. Although I think it’s the little deers that complete the look.

Let’s start from the very beginning…

About a year ago, on my regular browse on day-lab, I fell in love with these vintage jumbo initial pins. This time last year, day-lab still shipped internationally, but there were no “A”s or “Q”s or even “K”s. I continued to check, almost obsessively to see if perhaps one day, Amy would find more of these dead stock and upload them on her site. Instead of finding the correct letters in this style, the site was updated with more varieties of initial jewellery. And still to no avail. There was nothing in these letters. It suddenly felt like I was playing a very bad game of scrabble. Speaking of which I did buy some scrabble tile earrings from Brick Lane ages ago and was pleased that “A” and “Q” made up 11 points on their own.

I remember my mum buying my dad embroidered hankies with the letter “Q” in the corner. They were just so classy and made a special gift for the gentleman, that is my dad.

I guess those hankies had something to do with my need to get my hands on something similar.  I had a flash of genius. I was going to save a search on Ebay for initial. So for awhile now, I have been getting daily results for initials. Unfortunately this has resulted in some pretty ugly pieces of jewellery, and mostly in the letters that I wanted.

In October, I was in Paris for work. The apartment in Montmartre is next to the best junk shop in the world. Outside the window display is filled with heads of dolls, leather partridge pins in French colours. This shop as my friends had predicted had my name all over it. I spent a good hour and more in this teeny-tiny shop, the size of a medium bathroom. I found some gifts for everyone and myself! I walked out with wooden blocks of letters in beautiful fonts, a plastic red sailboat brooch (which I have unfortunately lost- boo) and a vintage thin gold leather belt (which is already falling apart 2 months on).  I spent much of that hour looking through a tiny box that was filled with vintage initial brooches. And again, no chance pour moi.  A feeling of stubborness came over me and I decided to buy a “Y”. I was going to tell people that it is not always about the initial, but also the end. My name ends with “Y”, so this brooch is mine.  I convinced myself that I was more than qualified to be wearing a “Y”.

I stopped looking.

And on Saturday, we went to Broadway Market to get some brunch. It was a gorgeous day with a clear blue sky. And something caught my eye. And there amongst the beautiful bird hairbands and pearl brooches that were being sold by Jessie Chorley and Buddug lay some pretty decent-sized initials. A quick scan and I found them. Quite easily my new favourite earrings.

I went to bed yesterday satisfied with my weekend find and listened to Serge Gainsbourg’s Initiales B.B.