Hanna P. Behind The Scenes: From Yesterday's Shoot with Alice Rosati

Taken from Alice’s Blogette: http://missrosati.tumblr.com/

I’ve had the best of work weeks, shooting Eva Herzigova, then Erin O’Connor and then Yasmin Le Bon, slightly overawed by their beauty and their down-to-earth loveliness: you know how when work is the best of fun and the best way to spend the day (bar cuddling my baby boy of course!).  Those shoots were for Corduroy the fantastic independent magazine from the States created by Peter Ash Lee, and whom I shot Lily Cole and Sir Ben Kingsley a few months back for the last issue (out now).

The day after the Yasmin shoot, it was another vibe entirely: ping-pang hot colours on the edge of the east – Hackney Wick – my version of the end of the world; albeit one filled with artists and wind chimes for a shoot with Alice Rosati and Hanna P, with Angelo on hair and my dear friend Sarah Reygate painting colorful eyes on a winter’s day.  The story is out very soon, hope you enjoy this sneak preview.

If I was 14 and had had Malcolm Mclaren trying to tell me what to do and I looked this amazing with a flourish of gold eye triangles, I would have been snarling too!

Loving the gold match-matchy tiptop lip line…

Coco Chanel at 18 Place Vendome.

Last week saw me in Marrakech and the Atlas Mountains, this week I trip-hopped over to Paris for a shoot for Harper’s Bazaar China with the lovely and talented Alan Gelati at the Chanel jewellery boutique’s private space above the store on the Place Vendome.  Gazing out across the square to the Ritz on the otherside, or poring over the amazing designs, yet again I appreciated just how clever Coco Chanel was.  The jewellery from 80 years ago still seem utterly modern, with diamonds set to look like the cobbles of her childhood orphanage home, the cleverest of fastenings, her myth tied into their very design.

With Dr Mistry at his shop.

I write this on New Year’s Eve, as it seems appropriate: this being a portal into the new year, filled with hopes and dreams, parties and resolutions.  This time last year I was well on the way to being a mother: sporting capes and flat shoes; I followed Dr Mistry’s health and diet regime ‘happy food’ to a capital T.  The result?  The healthiest of babies, the easiest of labours in my group of NCT mothers despite my being the eldest.

Turn back two New Year’s Eves however, and there was I felt little chance of my being a mother.  I tried to remain optimistic, but somehow the curt sharp words of the specialist I had seen just after our honeymoon, paralysed me into believing their version of my destiny.  Perhaps we wouldn’t have a baby; perhaps this would be our lot.  I tried to remain optimistic, yet recently married to a man whom I had loved for many years, it felt so spare to think this was it.  Nine months later on a whim, a half-conscious last resort, one Saturday I walked to South End Green with my god daughter to see Dr Mistry at his shop.  I had known him for many years, he had cured me of acne, and a friend of rheumatism with his simple vitamin and diet regimes mapped out on a hand drawn A4 paper chart.  Nine months had been long enough to incubate an impotent sense of fertility failure imploding as it did upon the previous many months: the specialist’s words had  become my grey reality.

Dr Mistry led me into his consulting room, read my pulse and announced this was all rubbish, that if I followed his routine, taking this before breakfast, that after, eating this and that so on, I would be pregnant within 3 months.  Wow I thought, really?  It all sounded too simple, too good to be true.  The consultation was free, as all his are, the supplements cost me £50.  The chart was stuck to the fridge, this was easy to follow; there aren’t many components to his remedies, since Dr Mistry adheres to simple, sage methods.  6 weeks is all it took; not even the 3 months he had confidently scheduled.  It was while we were on holiday in Turkey that the nausea, the exhaustion kicked in: the giveaway signs that I was pregnant.  I couldn’t, wouldn’t believe it and looking back I realise what a voyage it has been, as while he read my pulse as pregnant when we returned and I knew in my heart he was right when we were back, the first test showed up as negative.  My lovely client Charlotte Church was one of the first to reassure me that this happens, these tests are not the 99.9% accurate they proclaim in bold typeface they are on their packaging; but of course we all are more likely to believe the certainies, not the 72 year old Asian Ayurvedic Dr working from his health food pharmacy in NW3.

If there is one thing, actually I have learnt so many things this year, it can’t be refined down to one, but if I have learnt one large lesson this year, it is this: that babies are miracles and they are more likely to come from love, from simple healthy happiness with guidelines such as those outlined by Dr Mistry, as they are by specialists, especially if like the one I saw they drown you in negatives, in proportions, in fear.  Dr Mistry points out that each person can transform their body through their diet: nothing is unchangeable.

One friend of mine has just had twins thanks to Dr Mistry again after only 6 weeks, another couple we know it took only 2!  Meanwhile friends I sent for polycystic ovaries, for anaemia and other ailments, all report remarkable recoveries.  A lot of the products are manufactured by him, even a range of beauty products and creams, where though the packaging is not Space NK standards – the products with their potentised organic ingredients are – at a fraction of the cost.  The House of Mistry Herbal Baby Powder eradicated my baby’s skullcap within a day, while the calendula cream removed nappy rash within hours.

Jeremy and I are the most exhausted we have ever, or shall ever be, the headlong jump into parenting being a crazy initiation, where other parents nod in coded agreement at the utter relentless tiredness of the first year; yet somehow relating in direct proportion to the immense love we feel for our baby son: it is molecular and endless.  As the person we dreamed into being becomes not someone we see reflections of ourselves in, but his own beautiful, unique self.  I can never thank Dr Mistry enough for what his simple guidance did for us, given that he is a man not charging thousands, instead offering his services for free; a man whose spiritual harmony is at the heart of his work.  We still follow his simply healthy steps, they are common sense with a dash of the spiritual mixed in.  The result?  The healthiest, the happiest of babies, the best gift of my life.

Dr Mistry, Dukey and I.

For more information, to buy his products or to book in for a consultation, please check:-

www.houseofmistry.com

Happy Holidays!

Coco Chanel

In 2001 Walter Van Beirondonck curated Fashion 2001 Landed/Geland in Antwerp, which to date still stands as the best exhibition (actually a series of events and exhibitions, which took over the whole city) I have ever been to.  Stephen Jones and his partner the lovely Craig took me under their wing and together we went to museums, shows and supper.  One event called 2women celebrated  two women who have indeed changed the course of 20th century womenswear: Coco Chanel who liberated us from frills, corsets and hobble skirts and Rei Kawakubo whose Japanese ultra-modernity redefined what it is to be glamorous without overt sexual display.  One evening a Comme Des Garcons show was presented to an eager audience filled with the Antwerp Six and their coterie, who I observed all quite happy to sit together, unruffled by rivalry and show their admiration for Rei’s remarkable designs.  That afternoon an 18th Century house in the city had been taken over for an exhibition to celebrate all things Chanel.  From a room laid out with bottles of No. 5 in a huge 5 pattern, to an enclosed room filled with black and white images of her monochromatic universe; it really was an extraordinary day, celebrating two extraordinary women.

This Wednesday I am very excited that my local bookshop Daunt Books is hosting an event to celebrate, discuss and challenge assumptions about Chanel with another iconic woman from the 20th Century, Wallis Simpson at Keat’s House.

Wallis Simpson

Both known for their personal taste and unorthodox lives, I love the idea of placing them together, since both in their ways  were utterly radical, breaking through convention, class system strictures, albeit with a constant veneer of stark style where noone was either too rich, or too thin.

If you are free this Wednesday, I would utterly urge you to join me, my dear friend Lizzie from Mishka Vintage and others paying homage at the talk by Justine Picardie and Anne Sebba, authors of Coco Chanel, A Portrait and That Woman, the story of Wallis Simpson.  I can’t wait to hear them in conversation, having just finished Picardie’s biography last week.  Keat’s House is a ridiculously gorgeous venue at the bottom of a beautiful lane of houses close to Hampstead Heath: part of the reason why I love North London.  £5 including wine.

Sometimes I forget why I love clothes, why I persist in wearing heels and a hat when it really is far faster in flats, I lose sight of my truth: that style has its story and its power potency.  After this talk, I am sure I will remember and revel in the reasons why I love shoes, chiffon and sequins quite so much.  I expect to be re-enchanted.

Keat's House

To book online, please go to:-

http://www.dauntbooks.co.uk/events.asp

For more information regarding Landed/Geland:-

http://www.contemporaryfashion.net/index.php/none/none/104/uk/exhibition.html

Meg

Worst Witch

Morticia

Morgana Le Fey

Kate Bush Channelling Cathy

Mata Hari

Vampiros Lesbos

Magdalena

Happy Halloween!