Tamara Cincik

Christian Lacroix's Arles Wallpaper 'Vuelta' for The Designer's Guild.

Oh my, my old mentor Monsieur Lacroix’s lyrical magical hand once more lights my heart.  Ooh la la Lacroix, I LOVE this wallpaper cacophany of colour which he has designed for more reasons than I can say: decorative maximalist perfection.

http://www.designersguild.com/

PRET A PORTAS: AN INTERVIEW WITH MARY PORTAS FOR THE OPENING OF HER SHOP AT HOUSE OF FRASER. BY TAMARA CINCIK.

Mary Portas is a brilliantly British phenomenon. She transformed Harvey Nichols into the shop we all wanted to spend in; then she marched onto our TV sets, teaching her retail mantras to failing businesses, the charity market. From OAPs working in charity shops, to overly hair-gelled estate agents, her refreshingly real retail prowess made for gripping viewing, as we saw her map out how they could improve their businesses, we all felt her verve, her potent power at seeing where things could improve and wanted so much for them to listen. 
Now with her store-within-a-store at House of Fraser on Oxford Street, Mary has identified a gap in the mid-market high street here in the UK, the over 40s stylish woman. Cecilia Chancellor is the model: a face at once familiar to anyone who remembers ‘The Face’ or my old boss the talented stylist Anna Cockburn’s 90′s fashion shoots and I think the perfect fit for Mary’s store and its image. En route to a Cornish weekend away she kindly answered a few questions about the store and why someone like me (a new mother with so little time to shop, that service now more important than ever) might like to go there.

1) Mary Portas at House of Fraser is a new collaboration for Mary, in that it brings her manifesto – her Maryness to Oxford Street, to a department store and therefore to a mass market who know and love her from her TV shows. How different do you think this is from what is on offer currently on Oxford’s Street, or indeed ‘the’ high street?

Mary: Because I’ve created a curated space; everything in it has been edited down for grown up women in mind. Where there’s just too much stuff in the shops my space cuts through all of that to exactly what women need and want. Then the design of the shop is hugely important; the space and the staff is all geared towards a great experience. You’ve got to see it and feel it to totally get it. Bring your baby in, the staff will take care of you and him and give you coffee….

2) What I love about Mary is her direct no-nonsense charm: she gets straight to the point and we admire her all the more for it. It became a saying in our house: ‘what would Mary say?’ when we experienced bad service in a shop or restaurant. With online shopping so prevalent now, is service even more important for retail’s survival? Will we pay a little more for a little more?..

Mary: Service is a no brainer. Customers want service that includes knowledge. The staff in the Mary shop had an exam before they were allowed near the shop floor. When they serve you,  they will be able to tell you everything about everything in the shop; right down to how the shoes were made, and the essential oil in my candles and the story behind each one.

3) The over 40′s woman Mary has identified is a largely untapped  resource in fashion, which I agree is more fool the industry, as these  are the women whose kids have grown up, who have worked hard and
have  more money available to shop. What do you feel are the differences in their needs and wants from a shopping experience and how are you satisfy this?

Mary: This is the no bullshit audience. They want quality at a
reasonable prince, they want sexy shoes that won’t kill their feet,
they want modernity and style that reflects where they’ve got to in
their life and their achievements. Its not twee. Its slick and cool.
No-one on the high street is doing this.

4) My mother is an extremely glamorous 60 year old: ex rocker, child of the 60′s; well-versed in the ways of boutique shopping, as she started with Biba and Bus Stop. These babyboomers are the ones with
the cash, more than my generation are in lots of cases AND they are eternally youthful, way more than their war bride parents were. However they don’t like showing their knees and i saw alot of above
the knees looks on your website. Is this something, along with the arm coverage Mary has identified, which you are intending to add into the collections?

Mary: You can’t lump 40 year olds next to sixty year olds. Melanie is 40 next year! I’m sure you are in your mid thirties, you would not want the same things as someone twenty years older than you, it’s about a spectrum. There are a few above the knee dresses because the audience is grown up women; and not everyone wants to cover their knees! There are also below knee dresses; structured high-waisted leggings that are like spanx for your lower half, and pencil skirts that hit below the knee, as well as wide leg trousers. Later in the season, I’m proposing chic tunics to wear with those structured leggings and it is such a good look on a grown up woman. So many people are asking about this; I’m not dressing geriatrics. I want modern women through the door; if you don’t like your knees, that where the super high denier tights I’ve come in. My hosiery collection is designed to go with the dresses; the colours are great.

5) I love the collaborations with British brands, such as Clarks and Biba. What more are in the pipeline?
Terry de Havilland perhaps, Eley Kishimoto? For those of us who like our fashion more edgy than Clarks can offer, but still want it age appropriate and fabulous?

Mary: I haven’t collaborated with Biba; Biba is a sub-brand of House of Fraser’s and nothing to do with me! Working with Clarks has been a phenomenal experience for all of uson both sides, and the whole point is that my shoes look nothing whatsoever like trad Clarks. The Clarks elements incorporated into myshoes is the high quality production values, old-school workmanship,and best of all the inbuilt comfort technology. We’ve developed our own colours, leathers, and lasts.  This is Clarks, but not as you know it.

6) Christian Lacroix once told me that women over 60 tend to stop buying fashion. What can you do to entice them back into your shop?

Mary: Nothing, I’m not trying to entice anybody over 60. I’m trying to entice women with modern minds who don’t go around with a number attached to their sense of who they are.

7) What trends can you see translating from the catwalk into your store, ie appropriate for the market you have identified, in the next season?

Mary: I don’t see this market as a sub-group who are inspired by different trends than the rest of the market. This market is living in the same cultural landscape as everyone else; their needs are just slightly different, their desires are more sophisticated, and they put up with less crap because they can spot it a mile off. These are women, who if they had the budget would be shopping at Prada, Marni, Jil Sander, Donna Karan and DvF. There is nothing out there for them at a mid-to-premium high street level.  My sister is at the top of her profession in the NHS; but she could never stretch her salary to Prada, only on big birthdays. When she came to my shop she was like a kid in a candy store.   We’ve already set down some of our Spring 2012 trends. We’re feeling for sleek 1990’s inspired modern sporty silhouettes; we’ve got some spectacular prints in development with a contemporary artist, and there is a definite 1930s feel of opulence and elegance in the air inspired by the chic of Nancy Cunard and Diana Vreeland.

Do you intend to take this to other stores after London?

Mary: Yes. Manchester is next.

9) How hard is service with a smile?

Mary: I only employ happy people, service with a smile comes
naturally to them.

http://www.houseoffraser.co.uk/Mary+Portas/MaryPortas,default,pg.html

http://dianepernet.typepad.com/diane/2011/08/pret-a-portas-an-interview-with-mary-portas-for-the-opening-of-her-shop-at-house-of-fraser-by-tamara.html

Alexander Mcqueen Pink Boots AW11

Some girls want a pony; some want ballet classes; but some girls want nothing more than to prance in pretty pink boots: audacious at a 51/2 inch heel.  Naughty on the inside, but oh so sugar and sweet on the outside….

Zoe my God daughter at Vintage at Southbank

Terrace Drinks at Vintage

When Britain really did rule the waves, the high-point of her Britannia arrogance and verve was the 1851 exhibition.  A huge house of glass – a ‘crystal palace’ –  was constructed in Hyde Park.  Queen Victoria, her handsome consort Albert and their 9 children were resplendent in matching costumes: a visual hit of majesterial alchemy.  Exhibits from the Empire wowed crowds who had never left seen Dover’s white cliffs, as well as foreign guests and exhibitors who wanted to display the latest designs, inventions and innovations. 100 years later, to cheer ourselves up after WW2, Britain decided to hold another exhibition based on those same national pride principles, albeit now in a world where not only was the Empire and our certainty shrinking, those participating and attending had survived a war beyond all wars and still six years later wanted some fun and optimism after nearly a decade of post-war rationing.

70s Styling - Vol Au vent anyone?

The 1951 Exhibition saw the building of The Southbank: a concrete modernist Ark of artistic endeavour cutting a sharp swathe across the recently bombed southern side of the Thames: from Royal Festival Hall, to National Theatre, art lived on here in its mid-century absolutism.  The glass house which had encased the original exhibition was bombed and destroyed in its South London suburban location; what people needed was a boost, a sense of hope, yet like all British institutions, one founded upon a memory, an old idea made good, a sense of the past, of continuity into new ideas.

Which leads me to vintage: when I started buying old clothes, they were that, old clothes, secondhand was the name used and they were: 60s cocktail dresses bought from charity shops, deco bags at jumble sales, Victoriana from Portobello, as a teenager my penchant for silk velvet grew unabated as I would forego supper to buy something which I believed enchanted.  I can’t quite remember when secondhand morphed into vintage: perhaps when the prices went up? Perhaps when others en masse showed how they too shared my love affair with the old, with the stories, the craftsmenship and the unique beauty these clothes hold in their seams and darts.

Last Friday, my mother, my god daughter Zoe, my old friend Sukie and my 3 month old baby all went to Vintage at Southbank.  An homage to all things nostalgic curated by the Hemingways of Red or Dead infamy, to celebrate 60 years since the 1951 with a party/shopathon/fete/festival celebration of Twentieth Century modes in music, art, design and fashion.  Transgenerational, we moved from Abigail’s Party installation, to retro Art School printing class.  But it was the shopping, oh my friends the shopping, where my girls of all ages swooped on pieces of beauty, while my baby snoozed on magnificently.  You see he was already wearing the best in vintage: for I had prized onto him that morning a wondrous 1950s playsuit, baby shower gift from the lovely Mica, offset with a red and black check pair of M&S Vans.  I am sure if he could speak he would say ‘Mummy vintage rocks’.  Somehow too vintage has become a noun and for that I applaud last weekend, as a celebration of the best in past memories reshaped into something tantalising and hopeful.

The next day we went to Kew Gardens: both for Jeremy and Dukey their Palm House debuts.  For a still-standing glass palace and a relic of Victorian splendour in a cozy corner of South West London, I can recommend no greater way to spend a sun-kissed day.

Mrs Burstein.

Mrs. Burstein is someone who somehow has always been a part of my life.  She might be the Queen of British fashion: the orb and sceptre bearer for universal good taste; but to me she is also my best friend Jessie’s Grandma and as such someone whom I have known since meeting for a family birthday lunch in Belsize Park many summers ago.

Here she kindly answers some questions I have always wanted to ask her for an article I wrote one handed, when my baby boy was no more than 10 days old.  Hope that you like it!

Interview with Mrs Burstein for Jimon Magazine.

Fade To Grey

As the mother of a newborn, I’ve appreciated that now is the key time to shape Dukey’s future: from his intellectual to sartorial futures.  Our days veer from light ‘reading’ while punching monkey and parrot on his playmat, to my finger-light taps to his forehead with a smile, saying: ‘lawyer, architect, doctor…’ (turns out I am truly a North London <half> immigrant mother!).   ‘We’ve‘ simultaneously been working out our sartorial style in coherent coalescence (indulge me!): think rock and roll lite, lots of easy jersey pieces, with colour coordinated casual charm.  Let the journey, the joy, the future commence…

Dukey working the sweats on rocker look.

Monkey should be very afraid: Dukey anticipating using his left hook...

Happiness.

True Style Often Displays A Playful Element...

The Hackney Empire Interior at the House of Hackney Pop-Up Shop.

Some people see an empty white room and feel a sense of peace, order and tranquility.  There are others for whom this is a blank canvas onto which they can lavish layers of love, adding a treasured piece of texture from their travels here, a handmedown from the family, or a cherished much coveted heirloom-to-be sourced from hours spent carousing car boot sales, markets, or auction houses.  I fall firmly into the latter category: what I described to M. Christian Lacroix as ‘too much is just enough’; I rest most happily in a world of more is more completeness.  While I can and do appreciate the clear charm of minimalism, there is for me an innate comfort in the creation of collections: the sheer enjoyment in the knowledge that my world is filled with pretty things.

This love of maximality started young: obsessed with history, I would try to recreate the past in my imagination – via the portals of time-travel, jumble sales and wardrobe.  Aged 7, I was quite the young fogey: partial to a puff sleeve in the style of Holly Hobby and Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Fast track a few years and I was at my happiest collecting again while living out of a rucksack: from traditional Indian fabrics, to handicrafts my Turkish aunties made in our village (my Aunty Meryem was shocked when I coveted an old deeply gorgeous slightly frayed patchwork quilt over a brand new one) and vintage kimonos in Japan from the Tokyo Salvation Army sales.  What might start filled with base essentials, would on each trip mushroom into a Mary Poppins universe in a bag, filled with new treasures, as I explored ideas of  colour, fabric, texture and taste through travel-happy folkloric ritualised design (part of my aunts’ dowries were 100 piece of embroidered bedding), thus to a sense of the timeless root  of beautified utilitarian design.

Last week we went on a day out adventure to the mothership of my childhood time travel fantasies: Hampton Court Palace.  It was one of those alchemically divine early Spring days, the light was bright and the day filled with hope of sunshine days to come.

Entrance to another world: where magic happens through the arched doorway.

Taking in the Tudor Kitchens.

Like a tourist... In William and Mary's garden.

Stuart Maximal Neo-Classical Order

Tudor Chimneys resting in a beautiful blue sky.

What is quite amazing about Hampton Court Palace is how each epoch danced time on her surface: from Cardinal Wolsey’s Thames-side retreat, gifted to Henry viii and Anne Boleyn when The King’s Matter (his divorce from Catherine of Aragon) seemed out of reach and his own future doomed, to Tudor pleasure palace, through to the renovations undertaken by William and Mary, who had hoped to totally rebuild it, as a response to Versailles’ stylistic dictate of royal living.  As they ran out of money, they had to accept this hotch-potch half Tudor, half Neo-Classical patchwork of a palace: eras grafted onto each other.  Somehow to me this is more poetic, more English as we constantly edit and reapply our design motifs onto the past – how many Victorian London terraces have been gutted and remodelled in the last decade to display a new opened out kitchen, defying the rectangular narrow design of the original?

Admiring Charles 1st's portrait - hung directly opposite William of Orange's throne: defiance or humility?

The sheer luxury of William of Orange's velvet privy was not lost on me!

Admiration for Anne...

From Hampton Court, we went to visit Lesley Silwood, from Buba London at her idyllic island Thames house.  Jeremy was quite entranced with the idea of us relocating to this magical place: resting on the riverbank, it is amazing, very Swallows and Amazons.  Lesley and Euan similarly embrace the maximal approach to living: with Euan’s zingy poptastic artworks, Lesley’s partiality for sparkly treasure updates, which given her mother is a vintage clothes dealer, means she knows (!) it did translate into a sunset slice of paradise.  Recently branching into homeware from their  gorgeous bag collections, Buba London have designed the most gorgeous pouffes, a white one of which sat rather comfortably in their bright expanse of kitchen, as we looked out at their cat tormenting their rabbit rather mercilessly in his front garden hutch.

Buba London Pouffe.

As we are about to have a baby, but waiting to move from our let’s call it compact one bedroom apartment until after the birth (translation: until we know what we’re doing!), Jeremy has been actively modifying the space: from creating a shoe cupboard, to repackaging my Victorian owls.  As we aren’t moving yet, rather than install the new kitchen we bought a few months ago (still in boxes in the garage until we move), we have restyled it on a budget thanks to wallpaper and willpower.  Adhering to the maximal codes of overlaid design, I feel rather proud of the results.

Taxidermitastic for Tamara.

After butterflies and gnomes, came owls - an ode to collecting..!

Kitchen refurbishment rather than Kitchen overhaul, thanks to a spot of wallpapering.

The original cabinets are rather revolting and if we were planning on staying much longer then the spanking brand new ones we have chosen, bought and paid for, would now be shining in all their boxfresh glory.  But as we are aiming to move, this then is a Spring-hopeful transformation.

Last night we popped over the launch party of the East End’s ode to maximalism: The House of Hackney, a pop-up shop on the strip of road where Dalston meets Stoke Newington.  Their delightful hostess Madeleine guided us on a tour of the space: three themed spaces, with sustainably locally sourced interiors, where fun and OTT embrace the more is more prerequisites of layering, redesigning and making you think.  I loved the Hackney Empire room, with its Mad Hatter sense of psychedelic Victorianism.

Walls have been stripped back to reveal their Georgian past, while mirrors have been over printed with floral designs and updated with graffitti.  I was totally charmed: perhaps I was old before my time, my little girl well-being was as rooted in how a space feels; and as such I have always felt the pangs of lust of a luscious interior, as much as for a snazzy pair of shoes.  What is charming here is to see how this world order has been translated into something at once layered with an homage to the building’s many pasts, with current stylistic solutions and humorous analogies: Colefax and Fowler on acid indeed!

Have you ever imagine what happened if we dared to step through the looking glass and saw the world through topsy-turvy spectacles for an afternoon?  Well I think it might be rather fun: a place where our eccentricities sense order in their madcap escapades and where good design is shown it’s ultimate OTT overhauled conclusion.

If you do go down to Dalston this weekend, take a trip to the basement where cult baker Lily Vanili’s subterranean tea room will complete your tour.  Jeremy reported that the espresso martini was rather delicious.  As Lily had fed us at Amelia’s 123 Bethnal Green Road book launch, it felt like a full stop to the circle to enjoy them here too at another of London’s charmingly creative responses to duller than ditchwater corporate uniformity.

http://www.bubalondon.com/

http://www.houseofhackney.com/

http://www.hrp.org.uk/hamptoncourtpalace/

Purple Magazine, Photographer: Daniel Jackson.

Just chanced upon this from a shoot I styled for Purple Magazine.  I think it looks quite beautiful: inspired by Rackham’s illustrations on my part, it somehow feels rather Rembrant-like with the use of light when I look at it now.  The jacket is by Roksanda, who later made my deliciously sublime wedding dress.

Photographer: Daniel Jackson

Stylist: Tamara Cincik

Make Up: Alex Box

Hair: Rudi Lewis

Arthur Rackham: Alice

Rembrant: self-portrait - see what I mean?!

Mishka Vintage

swathes of lame

Treasures resplendent.

One balmy evening two years ago, driving a back-route from Jeremy’s parents through North London, I had one of those rare stop the car please (!!!) moments, as we chanced on Mishka Vintage’s closed potential.  My only other equally memorable stop the car moment, being somewhere in the Transylvanian mountains of Rumania in 1995, when I saw the multi-coloured fantasia-incarnate of a hand embroidered 100 year old traditional folkloric waistcoat.  I live in a world of clothes: literally surrounded with treasures sourced over the past 20 (eek!) + years, plus the weekly supply of designer options prepped in, edited, shot and returned for editorials.  Ergo, I am not easily impressed: I knew this had that rare alchemic frisson where magic realism meets vintage treasure trove.  The window was filled to brimming with stories: Victorian lace,  deco lingerie, 50′s dresses, 70′s clutches; layer upon layer of beautiful things.

History was my route into fashion: a childhood geeky addiction to history reference books fed into my frequent flyer time traveller daydreams, leading me to start my own vintage collection aged 7, as I felt entranced (and still do) by the stories and skills used to create such pieces.  I would imagine people’s lives when these clothes were made; how their world felt and looked.  Never for me just tired old rags: a Flemish lace collar, a beaded deco bag, or a velvet Victorian jacket, has always felt just as fantastic as the this season’s must-haves I work with on a weekly basis for the fashion styling day-job and with the added bonus of running their own  storyline: one filled with gilt-edged glamour, music hall melodrama, or Hollywood dialogue.

While organising my wedding 2 summers ago, I took the drive out past Crouch End one Saturday, between bouts of buying most of North London’s charity shops stock of vintage china for the wedding, to see what lay inside the promise of this newly found delight.  In my head the owner would be old, eccentric and prone to hoarding.  Imagine my surprise therefore, when I met the smiling glamour that is Lizzie Greene: a woman who manages to combine motherhood, high heels, a predilection for bold lipsticks and an encyclopedic knowledge of British 20th Century fashion design.  ie my kind of woman: someone for whom too much is just enough, while geeking out on quirky sartorial trivia; albeit yes indeed known to hoard, or as I like to term it to my husband: archiving.

Say cheese Jet: Lizzie with her youngest son Jet.

Jet is quite the mini rock star and taken to lying on furs, while making Darth Vadar noises.

Towards the light: Mishka's red mood section.

Sorbetastic treasures.

True blue, baby I love you....

Lounge lizard jackets for Studio 54 moments...

Lizzie has become a dear friend: someone who has lent me the most precious pieces for my editorial shoots, as well as a first port of call for music or advertising jobs, as her clothes often add a necessarily unique flourish.  The skirt I used for Charlotte Church’s recent single cover, was a Mishka purchase.

Charlotte Church: Back to Scratch.

Worn with Rochas, to me the Mishka Vintage Victorian Cape makes the outfit. Taken From my Shoot for Grey AW10; Photographer: Stefano Galuzzi.

The Bat's Brits 2010 bag: a Mishka find.

This afternoon I was there returning pieces lent for 2 of my 3 shoots this week: one for Six Magazine, one with Lily Cole for Corduroy.  However, if you were my styling client and looking for that one-off party dress, wow factor wedding gown, or retro-referenced Annie Hall meets Celine this season piece, Mishka Vintage would be on our list of must-dos.  When you do get there, take the time: this is not a 5 minute Primark collision course.  Chat to Lizzie, allow yourself to relax into remembering/experiencing what boutique-style one on one smiling service feels like; then see what magic you walk away with.

Mishka Vintage Clothing

Address:

212a, Middle Lane

Postcode:

N8 7LA

City/Town:

London (London)

Main phone:

020 8341 3853