Portmanteau Favourite Books

Children’s books

• Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder
• The Never Ending Story by Michael Ende
• Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
• Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll
• Sherlock Holmes series by Arthur Conan Doyle
• Miss Marple series by Agatha Christie
• Momo by Michael Ende
• Matilda by Roald Dahl

Fantasy

• Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman
• Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
• Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
• The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

Novels

• 1984 by George Orwell
• Wicked by Gregory Maguire
• The Philosopher’s Apprentice by James Morrow
• The Lover by Margeruite Duras
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

Philosophy and discussion

• Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag
• The Art of War by Sun Tzu
• Seredipities by Umberto Eco
• The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa
• Orientalism by Edward Said
• Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste by Pierre Bourdieu
• White Collar Crime by E. H. Sutherland

Please note that these are just my favourites, as well as books I’d recommend to pretty much anybody. It doesn’t mean I don’t like other books, or haven’t read other books that I love. I might also not remember one or the other that I absolutely loved, but that just aren’t coming back to me right now.

When I read, the world ceases to exist - an illustration in GIF

"Are you going to read all day/ night/ weekend/ week?"

Amelias Compendium of Fashion Illustration Launch Party

Images say more than a thousand words, and visual memories infinitely more than the words extracted from a humming head. Hence the word poor, picture rich post - the only words you should be reading are those in the book whose launch party these pictures depict and which you can get here: Amelia's Compendium of Fashion Illustration

Thank you for a wonderful evening!

Sally Mumby-Croft photographing the books

Bees Knees

I love me a little backless dress on Emma Block

Jewelery designer Maxine Johnston of Little Miss Delicious

Dee Andrews my one and only illustrator and Antonia in red and green

Fuyume, Koral Webb, Nikki Lau the blogger trio

Louise Durgate the knitwear designer

The Real Runway - we go waaay back, but most of it is blurry ;)

Fashion blogger of Sarah Scribbles and Dee Andrews

The Tatty Devine ladies!

Beautiful red head Koral Webb

Fashion Editor Matt Bramford, Sarah Scribbles and Dee Andrews

Forward PR having fun at the bar - ohh, that rhymes!

Hannah of Seeds & Stitches

Illustrators Erica Sharp and Zarina Liew

The one and only Amelia herself with the lead singer of 6 Day Riot

Amelia and Louise Durgate

Sarah Scribbles and Nikki Lau

Couldn't leave without a picture with the star!

Two girls from 'up north', the loveliest par you can imagine!

Bug shirt, very Old Boy

Matt's official face ;)

Forward PR now know my face and I know theirs

Reverse Oreo... can I say that?

p.s. Please help me out with links and names for the ones I've missed!

Sequins in Motion

I stumbled across a post by Fashion Fantasist that featured this gorgeous clip in the discussion of the Science of Sequins.



In my own little fashion universe, sequins are proof that taste changes as you get older and were as much in motion within my taste as they are as a material: completely flipped to show another, alternative side when being rubbed up against in the wrong direction. What appalled me was badly and cheaply made plasticity that can be encountered still, and the fact that it is a texture often used in the high street formula of "front of garment: hint of texture/ print/ detailing that looks like it should go all way round - back of garment: plain jersey, abruptly cutting off any coherent theme" that I still detest. I wasn't very keen on the immediate "look at me, I'm an Art Deco brothel dancer" impact that can of course easily be diminished with the right layering and styling. Not that there is a problem with that look, it's just not one I aspired to as a 14 year old. Quite rightly, I should say.

I do remember that I despised sequined pieces to as much an extent as I adore them now because as with many other things, I had to grow wise to realize that the quality and beauty of a type of material depends on the way that material is implemented and used. The same way Gustave Flaubert claims Madame Bovary is purposely mind numbingly boring in order to outline the inadequacy of words, I prefer to see it as pointing out the possibility of the inadequacy of words based on the inadequacy or misuse and misunderstanding of the person that employs them. I'm not talking about Gustave Flaubert but his characters, just to clear that up. Similarly, the use of sequins can be intricate and beautiful as is the case in this clip.

Although I wish she wasn't wearing boots in the clip, there's no denying the effect it can have when used in the right circumstances.

Image taken from AMLEA

Books I want to read

While I see people buying left and right and creating wish lists of materialistic value front and center, all I want is read. And by want, I don't mean "be gifted books" but merely that I shall be reading them. However, I enjoy creating lists as much as the next person, so this is my reading list for January since I won't be creating a wish list nor a shopping list to succumb to the man-made holiday (I mean shopping) festivities. Just leave me with a personal heater on a sofa (or a hammock in a warm climate, while we're at it) and these books, somehow pay my rent and check up on my stack of food (I mean chocolate) every few days or so... oops. The list is mounting, but in the end they are merely details. In the end I'm OK with just knowing I will be reading those books this month, and probably some more...

Gadsby by Ernest Vincent Wright

Finnegans Wake by James Joyce

The President’s Mystery Story by Franklin Roosevelt and seven other novelists

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

War and Peace by Tolstoy

The Ballad of Peckham Rye by Muriel Spark

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe

The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau