Tamara Cincik

Valentino AW13

Valentino AW13

Chanel AW13

Lanvin AW13

Christian Dior AW13

Celine AW13

Alexander Mcqueen AW13

Here is my edit of my favourite looks from AW13 at the Paris Shows.  Winner of the best set award has to go to Chanel for the sheer epic branding of their globe pinned with CC flags on all their stores + the gifts are always welcome!  Each season I love my update of their beauty range gifts.  It’s a CC charm linked world for me.

My Hot Tip As One To Watch: Zeynep Tosun's AW13 Show.

Portia at Pop PR urged me to come along to this show and I am delighted that I did.  A brilliantly focused collection, coherent in it’s autumnal palette and rich fabrics: from gleaming leathers, to embossed over the knee boots, from jet beaded chiffons, to Elizabethan ruffs; this was a fantastically confident show by a new designer, who I am sure we shall hear more about very soon.  Much as I love attending those large spectacle shows and am particularly looking forward to the epic experience that is the Chanel show in Paris, there is something rather wonderful about seeing fresh talent, especially when you see something rare, alchemical and brilliant, which you know will be a big name very soon.  A definite ace card.

www.zeyneptosun.com

Yesterday I spent a glorious few hours at The Victoria and Albert Museum.  My husband had cleverly taken the hint of a year’s membership as a Christmas gift, which means you don’t queue and can see any exhibition for free, as many times as you like, whenever you like.  Genius!  I loathe queuing…

I went to the Phyllis Dalton retrospective last month with friends, having been spellbound by her costumes for Dr Zhivago since I was a child, it was heaven to hear Omar Sharif scold her for only working with him twice.  ’What have you done to me Phyllis?  You ruined me.’  Deborah Nadoolman Landis, who curated this exhibition, hosted the evening and yet again I pondered the dilemma of how I shuffle stage left from my career as a fashion stylist and wake up a film costume designer.

The exhibition is very popular, it was pretty hectic in the darkened rooms, and given this membership, I shall definitely utilise it to go at another non-holiday time.  The dialogues between directors and fashion designers were fascinating: rather like those between photographer and stylist, really delving into the translation of character through costume.  There were so many of the bravest and the best designs displayed, but the one which stuck out the most for me was this gorgeous bias cut red sequinned dress and cape, which Joan Crawford wore in The Bride Wore Red, a film I am now desperate to see.

Joan Crawford: The Bride Wore Red.

Artwork for The Bride Wore Red.

The reason I think this costume is so utterly successful, is from it’s cut, colour and cloth, you get an entirely encapsulated sense of what the film is about, as well as era.  There is something both radical and sensual and brilliantly of it’s time, as well as urging you to believe in the glamour of cinema.  It is not a million miles away from the Tom Ford white dress and cape, albeit with a longer cape, which Gwyneth Paltrow wore to the Oscars 2012, which has garnered her best dressed listings.  Both are well-versed in the power of costume, perhaps Tom Ford even used this look as a silhouette reference.

Gwyneth Paltrow at the Oscars 2012 in Tom Ford.

Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro are also interviewed: my favourite quote was when Meryl Streep said that when playing Mrs Thatcher for The Iron Lady, it was vital for her character development that she learnt what Mrs T carried in her handbag.  ’I needed to know, and now I do.’

The Iron Lady - Meryl Streep - Hollywood Costume Exhibition.

Mrs Thatcher With Her Trusty Handbag Outside Number 10.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/exhibition-hollywood-costume/

Reason 1: CR Book.

Reason 1: I am very excited about the new magazine/book by Carine Roitfeld ‘CR Book’.

I love her foreword which relays both a vision for her new venture and an appreciation of fashion’s fertile possibilities, plus the sheer joy of motherhood, familial love and abundance.  At the Crillon last July, upon an introduction she sweetly pronounced me ‘the chic girl’ and I was swooning for hours!  New talent combined with visionary leading luminaries, reborn; how exciting: I am sure it will be wondrous.

http://crfashionbook.com

Reason 2: Bowie Exhibition at The V&A Next Spring.

It was listening to the song Quicksand which transformed my career.  After working as an assistant, it took nerves and bravado to launch out as a fledgling stylist on my own.  My lovely former boss, Anna Cockburn in a ‘phone chat/mentoring conversation, did ponder why it took me so long, but I found it scary and when you want something it always feels utterly daunting, like the chance not to reach the stars is incomprehensibly devastating.  After a few tests and even some commissions, I knew I hadn’t quite found my ‘voice’: I dressed more colourfully than the work I was producing.  One day, I chanced upon a secondhand beaten up LP copy of Hunky Dory and listening through the crackles came to ‘Quicksand’.  In a synaesthesian epiphany this was it: the poetic humility soaring with revelations quite casually relayed was my moment of understanding how brave, how open and how resolved I could be…

“I’m not a prophet
or a stone age man
Just a mortal
with the potential of a superman
I’m living on
I’m tethered to the logic
of Homo Sapien
Can’t take my eyes
from the great salvation
Of bullshit faith
If I don’t explain what you ought to know
You can tell me all about it
On, the next Bardo
I’m sinking in the quicksand
of my thought
And I ain’t got the power anymore ”

This patchwork springboard of colours, dreams, textures and harmonics burst my heart wide open with the playful possibilities and the hope to dare.

News of the upcoming exhibition at my favourite of museums, The V&A fills my heart with love today…

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/david-bowie-is/

Reason 3: The Diana Vreeland Documentary, 'The Eye Has To Travel' Coming To The Curzon Soon.

Famous for her idiomatic quips, Diana Vreeland was someone I would have loved to have met, let alone worked with.  I am sure her breadth of vision, her encyclopaedic all-encompassing openness to the opportunity for style to inform content would have been the best fashion education ever.  Social merging with art; fashion taking surreal steps into quixotic visual revolutions; how I wish she had been my editor, even if only for a sitting.

Taking The At Home Shot To Another Level...

The documentary ‘The Eye Has To Travel’ which ties in with the book of the same name is due at The Curzon later this month.

http://www.curzoncinemas.com/events/details/1367/premierediana-vreeland-the-eye-has-to-travel-qa-lisa-vreeland/

On the Catwalk: The Dress...

This dress was part of the most beautiful collection for SS12 by Roksanda Ilincic.  I remember being seated next to Diane Pernet and having a vibrant conversation about the plight of the UK bumblebee.  So much so, she asked me to write a piece about it for ASOV, which I did.  The collection was so ridiculously gorgeous that I dreamt one day of being one of these otherworldly women.  Cut to the next summer, when I was all of a sudden proposed to and we decided to get married quickly, for no reason other than it felt right; all systems go, I organised a wedding for 150 people + in the space of six weeks.

An afternoon spent with my mother looking at classic wedding dresses, nothing sprang to mind, then having an epiphany in Browns(!), beside a mainline Roksanda jacket, I spoke to my friend Mandi Lennard her previous pr and within 24 hours was looking at dresses at her atelier.  This immediately I knew was the dress: I loved how the overskirt felt bridal and coy, yet bouncy and unorthodox, while the handmade silk flowers added their own note of romance.

On The Way Into My Wedding

I was so nervous (plus doing a lot of Tracy Anderson!) in that six weeks that my dress was fitted down a size – loved that!  I wore it with a Stephen Jones veil, for which he used the fabric from the skirt and other dashes of glory, with some Christian Lacroix shoes I had from when I styled for him.  For when I felt a chill Shadiye the kindest mentor of a previous client  Mustafa Aslanturk reworked a pink silk velvet long cape I had picked up for a song at Walthamstow car boot sale for a song over a decade before and never felt was quite right unless I went to the opera (which sadly, I hadn’t), into something small, petite and perfect.

With My Father and Best Friend Jessie on the walk into Wingfield Barns.

Speech-time with Jeremy in my lovely dress (without the over-skirt) and reworked cape

Last Thursday evening I had a rare moment of doubt, that possibly my dress was not ‘the’ one.  Looking at a friend’s photos of their white lace ensemble, then tidying a shelf where our photos are, I said to Jeremy, perhaps I should have worn white.  No… he said in that way men speak when they know there is no right answer.  The next day, I had a rare moment of that precious thing called time, between a meeting at Island records and another in Shoreditch.  As there was a bus strike, I thought by chance, let me turn that into a positive, the weather is decent, I know I shall go to The V&A.  It is always lovely to visit: and indeed it was, having a ‘The Ballet Shoes’ meets arts and crafts moment admiring the Kensington architecture, then into the museum.  Imagine my timely surprise when I chanced upon The Ballgowns exhibition, swooped on the catalogue the first image I saw in the book was of ‘my dress’!

The exhibition attendant was so kind, I think bemused by my smiling shock that she let me in for free.  What a pleasure of an exhibition: Bellville Sassoon swinging 60′s zingy creations, couture latter-day glories by Worth, as well as a rolling film show of debutantes and cigar smoking aristocrats sitting through staged shows of elegance in Mayfair.  Upstairs, there she was.  Amongst the contemporary dresses my wedding dress shared the space with feathered glories by Alexander McQueen, printed sheaths by Jonathan Saunders as well as a beauty of a dress by Erdem in blue, yellow and floral.

Upstairs at The Ballgowns Exhibition

Sitting on the bench in front of my dress, it brought be back to my wedding day, forwards to now, as well as realising of course the dress was the right choice.

It was and remains my beautiful dress for a perfect wedding day.

The Dress At The Exhibition

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/ballgowns/ballgowns-british-glamour-since-1950/

http://www.roksandailincic.com/

My Vintage Lacroix Beauty.

This week saw me search high and low: from sample sales to department store sales; from ebay to online shops and everywhere I looked were handbags which were just ‘not right’.  Either too boring for words, or too ridiculously OTT, even some that they wouldn’t hold a lipstick, credit card and phone – surely the baseline prerequisite for an evening bag?..

My search began as I am going to the couture shows in Paris for the first time next week and while in that the heat is on moment of anxiety, I felt with all too much certainty, that my happiness lay in the momentary fix of buying a new bag.  Of course I partly jest: of course my happiness lies far more in my baby’s cuddles, or picking raspberries at out allotment.  But…  well there is that certain rush of adrenalin and pleasure which comes from an all time perfect purchase.

Nothing however felt right: unless I wanted to spend huge amounts.  I don’t find pleasure in spending huge amounts.  Fact.  As a stylist, I am lucky enough to be gifted, discounted, or privy to numerous sample sales.  Spending £5000 on a handbag would not make me happy; and might well end in divorce.

On entering the Prada store on Bond Street, I bumped into the lovely Johnny Blue Eyes, there with his assistant Savannah to prep for his client Lana Del Rey.  We spoke of my dilemma and he suggested vintage.  Hmmm, I thought let me see…  Back home I looked online, and chanced upon a shop close to home I had been to once before in The Stables in Camden Market.  The next day, with baby, buggy and 18 year old god daughter Zoe in tow, we went into the subterranean world that now makes up The Stables: Dukey literally cried seeing the techno pumping gateway to hell on our way down, but the people at Vintage Design Paradise (http://www.vintagedesignparadise.co.uk/index.php) could not have been nicer.  From dancing with Dukey to ska, to taking the time to talk me through their lovely array of pristine condition bags, several of which I liked: Dukey thought the Pollini the nicest – it’s sheen, always a winner with babies – who love shiny things.  Finally I saw a ‘vintage’ Lacroix and knew this was my bag.  Zoe knew it, I knew it and given it’s love heart handle motif I am sure Dukey knew it (am training his eye: start ‘em young, pray for an architect son…).  I worked for Lacroix as a stylist and have always loved the spirit of the house: with it’s partly awry beauty, this felt like the right fit.   Though there is a rather beautiful more orthodox Gucci classic, which might similarly have my name on it…

http://www.vintagedesignparadise.co.uk/index.php

I am happy to announce that I have joined the Valeria Elle agency in Milan for all Italian clients and bookings.

www.valeriaelle.com

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