What's New?

There has not been a lot to post about lately, but I have a few trips planned in July when I am on holiday so I am looking forward to that. 

The new season Hermes scarves are starting to trickle into some boutiques - but not to any near me!!  My nearest one advised August or September for the new ones - that is a long wait when you can get some online already as well!  So far I am most interested in one called L'Ivresse d'Infini by Zoe Pauwels. 

I love this purple colourway with its turquoise hem as it looks like it ties really well!!  So, I will be trying to find one when I go to Paris next week as well as trying see what designs are on offer in the 70cm vintage size.  Seeing as Hermes have very cheekily increased UK prices I hope that it will now be cheaper to buy in Paris.  Isn't one price rise a year enough for Hermes?  They do annoy me.

Today I was pleased to see the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attending an Armed Forces Day event at Windsor where they presented campaign medals to the Irish Guards.  The Duchess wore a suitably military outfit (believed to be Burberry) and I thought she looked great!
Photos: Daily Mail

She was slo wearing a new gold bracelet with a gold disc engraved with a crown and her initial, "C".

Princess Diana had something similar as I recall. 

The Duke and Duchess will be off on their tour of Canada and the USA shortly so it will be interesting to see how that goes.  They have released a lovely new portait to commemorate the trip - it was taken in the grounds of Clarence House on Friday 3 June 2011 and I think it is really nice.
Photo:Chris Jackson/Getty Images













Next weekend on Friday and Saturday we see the royal wedding in Monaco of HSH Prince Albert and Charlene Wittstock - she is reported to be wearing an Armani wedding dress and rumour has it that her gift from the Prince will be a new tiara - can't wait to see that!!  Luckily we have european satellite TV at home so I should be able to see the wedding on one of the French or German channels as I am sure the UK TV will not show a thing - they never do and we live in Europe!  That so annoys me too!  I will be buying Paris Match and Point de Vue magazines when I am in Paris as their coverage of such events is always very good - their coverage of the UK royal wedding was great - they always have great photos and I am sure Hello! won't let me down either LOL!
Photo: www.palais.mc


Following the Monagasque royal wedding the Grimaldi Forum's annual summer exhibition is going to be focussed on 20 European Royal Courts - it looks like a must see for me so I will have to get a trip to Nice/Monaco sqeezed in!  You can read about the exhibition "Fastes & Grandeur des Cours en Europe" HERE

I will be sure to post after my trips!  Hope you are all well and enjoying the summer if you are lucky enough to live somewhere that you get some sun and warmth!  It's not too great here at the moment!!

London - Trooping The Colour

Well I had a little time to spare on my trip to the ballet yesterday and seeing as it was Trooping The Colour day (celebrating the Queen's "official" birthday) I headed to The Mall as it was not far from the theatre.  There were lots of people there.
Here is the view from Admiralty Arch.

I only managed to see the back of Kate and Camillas' heads LOL!  I could see Kate was wearing white and a black hat, but I was not able to get any photos myself so here is one from the Daily Mail.

I could just make out Prince Harry by his bright blue beret and I could see Princess Eugenie, I completely missed the Queen and the others because of so many people pushing in the crowd.  (Photo: Daily Mail)

Here you can see some of the officers riding by in the procession.

Here I managed to get a wobbly photo of the back of royals that rode behind the Queen - I think that the one with the blue sash just beneath the blue flag is Prince Charles and I can just make out Prince William's horse's tail LOL!

Here is slightly better pic of the procession of Life Guards/Household Cavalry. 

My photos are not good at all so I apologise for that but I hope those I have posted some from the newspapers show better what I missed!  It was still nice to have been there and maybe next year I will go specifically for the event and get there early to secure a better place - like at the front not the back!!

My new Hermès goodies!

While I was in London I went to Harrods and I found the first scarf on my list:- Fleurs d'Indiennes by Aline Honore in colourway 03 - Violet/Turquoise/Abesinthe. 
This scarf has a fabulous green contrast hem and the green just pops against the vivid violet!

It looks very striking worn with strong colours.


When I went to Paris, FSH was very low on stock and had nothing I wanted - the SA said they only had ONE plissé in stock when I asked OMG!  Anyway I left FSH empty handed and went to Rue de Sevres.

RdS turned up trumps as it has done for me several times now!!  Scarf number 2 on my list of 2 (!) was in stock - Pois de Soie in Rose Pale/Framboise/Rouge.  I really like how each little "pois" circle has an exerpt of another scarf in it - the tiny "pois" have Bolduc in them the other bigger "pois" has the other scarves - I have been trying to identify then - Passage a Moscou, Neige D'Antan, Napoleon, Les Clefs, Farandoles are all there! I also like the red contrast hem.

The Rose Pale is such a lovely soft warm pink it is really summery! Here I tied a short Half Ascot Knot after wrapping the scarf around my neck once.

Then a normal Half Ascot Knot.

And the good old cowboy.

As the SA opened the drawer to look for a "fresh" pink Pois de Soie I saw an unfamiliar design and asked to see it - you may recall how RdS had run out of the special edition scarf celebrating the opening of the new boutique in January - well they had more in stock! I was lucky at RdS yet again! There were 2 cws a white one with blues/greens and this one that came home with me in Chocolat/Framboise/Rouge. 
The scarf is called Rendez-Vous Rive Gauche. 

It depicts typical Parisien scenes with the people wearing/carrying Hermès items - of course!


The designer is Cyrile Diatkine and has a lovely contrast hem.  I believe it is a copy of the design on the hoardings that covered the building at Rue de Sevres while it was being renovated for Hermès.

And worn a la cowboy.

I was really pleased with my little haul of scarves and now I am looking forward to seeing what is on offer for AW11!!

Paris continued

On Sunday morning I finally made it to the Orangerie Museum in the Tuilleries Gardens - I have been wanting to go there for ages to see Monet's Nympheas.   I was not disappointed!

The Monets were glorious.

The Nympheas fill 2 whole oval shaped rooms.

In additon to Monet's Nympheas, the small museum houses a permanent collection of impressionist art and had quite a few Renoirs which I have come to really like since I saw some at the Musee d'Orsay last year.  I especially liked Renoir's still life paintings of fruit and flowers. 
This bouquet of roses was beautiful.

I particularly liked Renoir's peaches.

This museum is great because it is small so your senses are not overloaded and you can digest what you have seen much more easily than when you go to a much bigger museum.

After going to the ballet in the afternoon (to see Flames of Paris - pic on previous post) I went to Montmartre for dinner.  No trip to Paris is ever complete until I have been to Montmartre - I love the atmosphere up there. 

There was a huge queue for the funicular railway so I decided to walk up the hundreds of steps to get to the Butte de Montmartre!  I took it slow and rested after each flight of stairs so I was not too out of breath by the time I reached the top LOL!   I visited Place du Tertre, where the artists hang out, and then I shopped a little before going back down to my favourite restaurant for dinner and that quintessential Soup a l'Oignon -and that was just the starter OMG!!

On Monday morning I went shopping and here are some of the delicious looking cakes in the windows of Fauchon.

And a croquembouche and macaron tower in Dalloyau's window!

I passed this beautiful florist shop - I loved how they just had white flowers in the display - it was very stylish indeed.

In the afternoon I went for a drink and a cake in the cafe by my hotel and the place was empty but for the owner and her HUGE grey cat - he just sat in the window soaking up the sun and regarding passerbys who tapped on the window at him with complete and utter contempt LOL!  A real cat with attitude. 

Of course my trip around the shops netted some nice goodies - some new shoes, some tops and of course some Hermes......to be continued!

Ahhh Paris in the Spring!

Sorry I have been absent for a while - work has been mad busy and then I took a little break and went to London and on to Paris for the ballet as the Bolshoi were in Paris. Of course London and Paris afforded me the opportunity to visit Hermes at Harrods and in Paris - FSH and Rue de Sevres - more of that in another post!

The weather in Paris which greeted me off my Eurostar train was beautiful and sunny as you can see from this photo of the Hermes Horseman!

Here are some of the lovely flowers in the stalls by the Madeleine.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Madeleine.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I had to indulge in some Parisien patisserie of course! Angelina's was on my route so I stopped off and walked past the huge queue for the cafe and went straight to the cake counter and selected a green tea and raspberry confection - I ate it when I got it back to my hotel room and it was delicious!




 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Just near Hermes FSH was a beautifully decorated jewellers window - I thought this was really delightful!

Then there were the Eiffel Tower and Place de la Concorde.  The sky was looking dark on Sunday morning but it brightened up.

The Place de la Concorde.

The Bolshoi Ballet was the reason for my trip and I had only been able to get 1 ticket to see Flames of Paris on the Sunday, I had not been able to get one for my favourite ballet Don Quixote but the ballet gods were looking down on me and I did procure one thanks to ebay France, so I was delighted to be able to attend the Saturday evening performance. The performance was wonderful and I was thrilled to meet the dancers at the stage door and get some autographs.

Maria Alexandrova and Alexander Volchkov in Don Quixote.

The Flames of Paris with Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev.

The shop at the Opera Garnier had these beautiful paper lamps for sale - aren't they lovely?

Well that is the first part of my Paris trip...more to follow....aurevoir mes amis!

Contrast Hems

Over on TPF this week's SOTD theme is contrasting hems.  So far I have contributed these scarves:-

Ex Libris en Camouflage Gavroche - Half Ascot Knot
(Half Ascot instructions here)

Tour les Clefs 70cm - Cowboy Knot

Hermes Sellier Gavroche - Half Ascot Knot



Lily of the Valley & Faberge

The Lily of the Valley is in full bloom in the garden at the moment so I took the opportunity to cut some to bring the lovely perfume inside!  I was pleased to see Kate used some in her wedding bouquet too.  Lily of the Valley is the dominating scent in the Dior perfume Diorissimo which is lovely and light to wear.

As a fan of Faberge I absolutely love the 1898 Lily of the Valley Egg which was made as a gift for the Tsarina, Alexandra.  I am very lucky to have seen this particular egg twice - once when it was part of the Forbes Collection in New York and once in Brussels in an exhibition after the Forbes Collection had been bought by a Russian billionaire!  It is a truly stunning piece of artwork and incredibly beautiful.

Photo credit - not known



The top opens to reveal photographs of the Tsar and 2 of his children.

Photo credit - not known






















Photo credit: not known

 


















I would love to see the eggs again sometime soon and would recommend anyone to see them if they get the chance!