Ode to Cos

COS is the honey to my bee
the yin to my yang
the bread to my jam
the apple to my retina
COS had me a C
Cos completes me.
I am not good at ODE as you can tell :)

But you get where i am going with this: I freaking love COS. They neatly fold and wrap up your bought items in coloured crepe paper scented with eau d' "buy more at COS we are awesome" it's a mighty powerful scent to resist.
But COS is also tres expensive. Well, it's not like it's uber expensive.. but it's the kind of store you can't walk out with five or six bags without having to live on water for a week.
Been stalking their site to see when the sale start so i can buy that one piece of item i lusted at (self-control yoh)
But here are a couple of my favourite COS items.
Merry Christmas! 3 more days until Santa comes a knocking down that chimney!

Radio Win

For a fraction of our teenage years, my sister and I shared a room with a creaky bunk bed, a crammed wardrobe and a digital alarm clock that doubled as a radio. The radio was our priced possession; our music bible. Perched on the worn-out box it came in, the bulky old thing was mostly tuned into Sky Radio; the station where tunes come to die.
In the Netherlands , Sky radio 100.7 FM" was reserved for old-school tracks that no longer received play on contemporary stations.

On Sky Radio songs that made your father and mother freeze in their tracks to get an earful had a space to spew and rage against the dying of their light. The best thing about Sky Radio is that didn’t discriminate; it played tracks from a range of genres, from rock to r n b to Hip Hop and country. It taught us a lot about music.

It was here I first heard Pat Benatar tell me that “Love is a battlefield”
Jimi Hendrix would drop in once in awhile, out of his Purple Haze , and hugging the limelight “I want to say one more last thing. I didn’t mean to take up all your sweet time “
I found a buddy in Skello. Sure, I didn’t have an “8-track and a spare tire in the backseat” but I did wish “I was a little taller and a baller”
Really, I wanted to be a baller. I thought being a baller would get me the hot guys ☺

It was awesome time. Great times

The radio was also our access to competitions.
Friday, when all the cool kids were off exploring the night in bigger neighbouring cities, we used to sit huddled up listening to this soul and hip hop show that always featured a chance to win an assortment of goodies.
I never really won anything. But my sister did: Tickets to see Beyonce, CHECK! and another great win was a frontrow ticket to see Remy Shand in concert. She won a lot. She is very lucky and also an encyclopedia when it comes to music and movies.
But I don’t really win stuff.
Okay, I won a history quiz once in High school. But my history teacher loved me so I wouldn’t be surprised if she rigged that competition. She wanted me to go on and study history and write papers on the Tet offensive in 1965. But you know, I liked writing the papers and all, but a life-time on speculating on just whether Franz Ferdinard’s assassination was really the tipping point that led to World War One…. Coffee anyone?

And I might have won a few hearts but I think it’s more of like the hearts were given to me under the guise of me having won. “I once had a boy or should I say he once had me”

So, tonight at the London College of Jewellery’s raffle, before they pulled out the first number, i went : “whatever,i never win anything, every!”
And, like in the movies, not sure which one, they called out my number. And I go “ummm really, are you sure”
I won. I actually won.
it was good. it's a pretty necklace, very shinny and nice.
Wonder if this is what the radio win would have felt like :)

Night Falls.

I like walking at night.
I have for as long as i can remember.
I feel i am much better about it now as an adult. Before, i was very dismissive of the dangers that lurk about night. That being said, i grew up in a very small and uneventful village where absolutely nothing, and i mean NOTHING, happens at night
With age I came to realise how disturbingly worrying it must be to parent a child with such a disposition.
Or be a boyfriend to a girl who just gets up and wanders around
Or be the sibling who worries when you slipped out.
Here, here for age :)
i don't actually walk around so late anymore... For a good couple of years now.. But i find that it sneaks up on me in the winter. There is something about the cold that makes me very restless, maybe i think a chill will settle in my bones and never leave :)
I don't like the cold.
Either way
I find it very calming. I feel like in on a secret when i walk at night. That i am seeing the world they way it should be. Seeing everything it hides during the day. i find it very beautiful and so silent. Think the closest feeling to it is meditating; just being aware of your breathe as it rises and falls and everything else becomes very heighten yet very insignificant.
Well, right now, i am fighting the urge to go walk around. But i have a lot of work to do.

Brown Sugar

Joan Smalls with Choreographer Stephen Galloway.




Stephen Galloway with model Raquel Zimmermann

Wouldn't mind coming back as a female version of Stephen Galloway. Or like finding a time machine and going back to when i was like 5 and take ballet classes. Dreams.
Stephen is so awesome. He has my dream jobs. Sigh.
He is ballet dancer, has been for 25 years- sure you can see his got some moves from the picture.
But it doesn't end there. Nope. Nope.
He has worked as an Art Director for fashion houses such as Issey Miyake; helped staged fashion shows for the likes of Yves Saint Laurent, Costume National, Versace and Miyake and served as a a creative consultant and choreographer for the Rolling Stones’ world tours and music videos since 1997.
He is now in your face on every H&M billboard this winter with model Joan Smalls. She is alright, but i only have eyes for the dancer :). I just love his work; he injects movement into what would be otherwise quite boring work,
Oh, oh, i almost forgot, Stephen also designs for ballet productions across Europe, the US and the Far East.
Come dance with me Stephen. I will pay you to go as my date to my "Christmas" Party . No jokes.

Madewell is Made-well

It's very hard for me to think of Madewell as an American brand. I can't help it. My eyes and mind tell me it should be french, mais non it's American? American brands, well American brands, don't tend to create anything as easy and chic as Madewell.

Oh dear, i might be stoned for saying this. Wait, i can redeem myself.
Let's have a fashion history class here . Take Bill Blass, Donna Karen, Ralph Lauren even Marc Jacobs, all awesome designers, but really none of them are effortless, not really.
I mean it as a compliment. Madewell is awesome.
It's simple, it delivers, and it makes women believe that all they need to be hot is to wear a nice striped t-shirt, fitting pair of jeans, perhaps a cardigan and a splash of colour; It's very french, very conscious of the importance of styling.

But can't argue with the fact that it's Americana. Hats off to Madewell’s Head of Design, Kin Ying.
Madewell is also very clever; they have collaborated with the likes of Alexa Chung and Dree Hemmingway, both very effortless. Madewell just released a holiday video with Dree Hemmingway. Can't find it on youtube alas.... so you will have to enjoy Alexa's videooooooooo.