Wish List

From John Lewis.

-Catherine

The Reason I Don't Blog About Fashion Anymore

I have discovered homewares.
My Wild & Wolf 1970's replica phone from John Lewis.

One of my two tea sets. I don't use them enough but they look lovely. Bought at Chatsworth Road market.


I am a very enthusiastic Ikea customer. I love the home assembly and I love the Swedish meatballs.

My old lady arm chair. Neil haggled for that blanket and I hand sewed the little green cushions. I got the fabric at Our Patterned Hand on Broadway Market. Gorgeous shop, lovely staff.

This is a tea towel that some lovely friends of ours gave us. It was so nice I put it on the wall. From The Cake Cafe.

-Catherine

Joanne Hynes Online

Joanne has just released her collection of accessories for Spring Summer 2011 which are also very conveniently available through her online store. I am a huge fan of her oversized crystal necklaces of which there are plently to choose from. The one in the picture is my favourite, I love the blue details and at €220 they're reasonably priced too.

-Catherine

Lovely Lingerie

I'm not sure how many of your read The Cherry Blossom Girl but in case you don't, she is launching a lingerie collection with french label Etam and the pictures are absolutely gorgeous. I'm don't know about in Dublin but in the UK you can buy online from etam.co.uk from April 22nd.

-Catherine

Les Guerriers

I had the amazing opportunity of working at the Joanne Hynes/Helen Steele show at London Fashion Week and I wanted to share it with you all here. Joanne, Helen and Annmarie and all great people to work with and congratulations to them all, you did an amazing job! All photographs by Brian O'Sullivan.








You can see a video of the show on Arkle Sparkle or Annmarie's blog I Blog Fashion.

I also did a piece in The Examiner last Saturday, and although I haven't had a chance to see it yet, hopefully some of you might have enjoyed it. And if you didn't see it either, one tip for A/W 11 Berry is big.

-Catherine

Not Just Pretty Pictures

LILLIAN! I'm back! As she knows but maybe some of you don't I moved to London in August and have only just got a handle on my free time.

During some of this free time recently I went with a friend to the The Design Museum's Drawing Fashion exhibition which runs until March 6th. It is absolutely gorgeous, although it seems a shame that such beautiful illustrations are no longer used in fashion magazines. I always had a thing for fashion illustration and during a summer course in the Grafton Academy a few years ago I turned my hand to it. Not surprisingly it didn't work out but luckily my sewing skills improved dramatically. It was opened in November by one of my first fashion loves, Colin McDowell whose column for the Sunday Times Style magazine Fashion Moments was what encouraged me to start collecting the magazine all those years ago. McDowell spent ten years as a fashion designer and illustrator himself before becoming a journalist.

Perfect for a Friday afternoon, especially if you make it to Borough market for lunch. Nom.

-Catherine

Dolls

Now that Catherine has pissed off to London we don't really get to see each other all that often. All attempts at ringing each other have failed miserably and our emails have been pretty lame,and along the lines of 'no news today, just working,uggh I hate Dublin'. Things must change Catherine. I'm proposing that we use this fairly neglected blog as a place to swap our news, yeah?



Diversion over, I went for brunch a couple weeks ago with Cillian (actually he's written about this already and does a much better job than I will). We headed to Dolls on Emorville road, just off South Circular. 'Hmm Dolls that's a boutique right?', you're not wrong but the newer of the two Dolls boutiques also has a lovely cafe attached. 'South Circular Road that's a bit out of way?', again you're not wrong, but when you're not wrong you're only sometimes right. The location is fairly brilliant, out of the way of noisy town, filled with tourists, the residential setting makes the busy cafe seem really relaxed. Cillian likened it to Hackney, which is where you live Catherine, that's great isn't it?



I very stupidly left my camera on in my bag so the battery was dead by the time I remembered to take any pictures. You'll have to take my word for it that the eggs Benedict looked lovely and was delicious.



Really oddly, a friend of mine once lived in Dolls. Obviously before it was a boutique, back in the days when it was a ridiculously dodgy student flat with a door that couldn't lock. Sitting in the cafe downstairs was pretty funny, when I remember a drunken night trying to boil water for tea on the hob when the nob fell off and the place filled with gas.



This place is first on the list for chats and coffee when you come back for a visit.