New scarf ring

I treated myself to my first Hermes scarf ring - the new Bolduc Ring in permabrass (gold). I love it!  It looks great with my scarves - here are few little pics to show it off.

I was also given a sample of the new perfume soon to be launched by Hermes it is called Voyage d'Hermes and has a woody scent with a hint of musk - very fresh and very unisex.

The Bolduc ring is square which makes a nice change!

The front depicts the Hermes caleche.

The rear has "Hermes-Paris" stamped on it.

As you can see the edges feature the "stitching" like the real Bolduc Ribbon used to wrap up all Hermes goodies!

Here with my La Legende du Poisson Corail plisse - and a detail shot:-

A straight "tie" look.

And a crossover "knot" which I feel is a more secure way to wear the ring as it is quite wide and I would not wear it on a 70cm in anything that was not secure as I would be afraid it would slip off - I know from bitter experience with a non H ring!

With my 70cm Kelly en Caleche scarf in a crossover for security.

And finally worn as per the latest set of Hermes knotting cards - wear the scarf in a Cowboy knot/fold and slip the ring on one end before you tie the knot at the back of the neck - I think this is a really great idea from Hermes and I will be wearing this a lot!!

Vintage Scarves Part IV

Continuing my occasional series featuring my vintage scarf collection:- here are the pale-medium pinks.

Rialto - 70cm Cotton Charm from SS09

I really like this design by Perron and have 3 versions of it - 2 in cotton and one in silk:-

This particular scarf was a special edition for the Venice branch of Hermes and has written on it "Hermes Saluta Venezia" and "2008"

The design looks nice when worn, shown here using a scarf ring in two different ways:-

Flower Knot

Basic Fold and pulled through the ring.

Cotton Charm in a Cowboy style.

Another favourite design of mine - Kelly en Caleche from SS07 by Cyrille Diatkine.

I had to watch Ebay for MANY months to find this scarf!!

Worn Cowboy Style

and here worn simply round the neck to keep warm on a cold winter's day!

Finally my pale pink Expeditions Polaires Francaise which was from the AW09 collection.

Worn simply knotted around the neck similar to a cowboy style and a basic Fold pulled through a scarf ring.

So that concludes the pale -medium pink collection!

Tulips from Amsterdam

Last weekend my travels took me back to Amsterdam for a very quick visit to see the brand new production of Don Quixote at the Dutch National Ballet - it was very good, and very very funny, although my favourite version still remains that of the wonderful Bolshoi Ballet from Moscow.  No trip to Amsterdam would be complete without a trip to the street florist near my hotel!!  I plumped for some lovely pale pink and green roses (Kenyan though!) and some bright and cheerful yellow tulips with a tiny red splash of colour - as the tulips have opened up they look like tulips from one of the Dutch Grand Masters paintings!!

You must excuse the brown paper but the florist said I had to re-cut the stems then put the tulips in cold water as soon as I got them home, leaving the paper wrapped around them for an hour - this helps the tulips take up water and stops them flopping.

The Singel Flower Market - one of my favourite haunts!

Fabulous bulbs!

A grey day in Amsterdam looking at the back of the Singel floating flower market - you can see the backs of the shops floating on the right of the canal.

Venice & The Rialto Market

While on my trip to Venice I could not miss a visit to the Rialto Market. Anyone who knows me will know just how much I adore fresh food markets because they just do not exist in England in quite the same way as they do in Italy, France, Germany etc....there is just something so wonderful about seeing fresh produce beautifully displayed and the only sad thing is that being on holiday I had no need to buy anything!! Anyway here are some photos I took at the Rialto...

Fabulous fresh vegetables

Beautiful colourful fruits!

Artichokes carefully prepared and kept in water.

Anyone for beans?

Cute round zucchinis!

Amazing fungi - very uniform!!

See what I mean about presentation?

 

Fabulous fish.

Pass me my sword......what a spectacle this sword fish was!





         Octopus, crab and whitebait(?)

I hope you enjoyed this little trip around the Rialto Market - ciao!!

Venice & The Venice Carnevale 2010

I returned from my little trip to the Venice Carnevale a few days ago.  As usual there were so many wonderful things to see and fabulous Carnevale characters to see that I ended up taking over 1200 photographs!  Good job my camera chip is BIG!  So what I can share here really is the tip of the ice berg.  A lot of Venice is covered up again and undergoing renovation work, which is a pity for sightseers, albeit very necessary.

The weather was lovely when I arrived in Venice but being the first Sunday of Carnevale the city was really crowded. 

Plisse & Pleats Day

We are having a Plisse and Pleats Day on TPF today so I am wearing my new plisse that I was lucky enough to find on my trip to Venice this week.  The design is called La Legende du Poisson Corail and is by the designer Christine Henry.  The pattern represents a coral atol and lots of fish hiding in the reef - the shimmering water is represented by flecks of colour and each corner features a flying fish to symbolise the relationship between heaven and the sea.  I was not very fond of the desing in the flat but when I asked if the Hermes boutique had any pink plisses this is what the SA showed me and I loved it!

I am wearing the scarf in a flower knot today (first picture) but I tried out some other looks which I show below:

Friendship Knot

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
You can wear the plisse as a lovely shawl if you are going out in the evening - I fixed this again with a scarf ring in a small flower knot.  This shows of the circular design of this plisse really well too - IMHO!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And another flower knot - just to show how the knot never looks exactly the same each time you do it!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope you found some inspiration!!

Amsterdam

I went to Amsterdam to catch a final glimpse of the At The Russian Court Exhibition at the Hermitage

- it was crowded and too busy to really enjoy it properly, but at least I got to see the fabulous Court dresses again with their amazingly intricate embroidery in silver and gold thread. 
(Photo credit  www.thoughts.com and Reuters)

Beautiful evening gowns were displayed in circular cabinets 2 of which rotated every now and then when a clip from the ballroom scene in the film Russian Ark was shown on the walls.  Some of the dresses were by the Paris Fashion House Worth - I adore dresses by Charles Worth they really are something special and the dress below left with the dark green velvet bodice and cross over bow is Worth worn by the Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna.

(Photo credit www.15minutesmagazine.com  /Roger Webster)

Amsterdam was a bit grey and it rained a lot!

I was glad of a cup of tea at a restaurant and they had the cutest mini tea library I ever saw from which to choose my tea! 

I love Amsterdam's flower sellers and I bought some lovely tulips and roses to bring home - the tulips are so bright and cheerful!