I removed the second line of Nietzsche's quote as it discusses the "irrefutable errors of mankind"...and, as I'm currently gazing at images of Balenciaga's 2011 resort collection I don't want to think in terms of errors. A floral pantsuit destined to be worn by the very thin, very brave, or the small number of souls who decided to save the pennies they would have spent on mirrors and buy Balenciaga instead...maybe...but actual errors...no.

Of particular interest...from a personal, inspiration standpoint as opposed to an actual "oh, look at this bucket of cash...I think I'll go shopping" one...are the demure, yet transparent, shirt dress...and the ladylike, yet exuberant, blouse and floral skirt combo. Both have that 'groomed yet funky' appeal which is so irritatingly difficult to attain...

Considering the amount of rain that's been falling recently it's no wonder that my thoughts are a little greige...the skies are grey...there's more mud than grass in certain areas of the park...and any light colored, summer-y fabrics which have wormed their way into my closet (against my better judgment) are in danger of becoming distinctly soiled. No wonder that shades of greige's bag caught my eye...the canvas and white leather says "summer"...the fact that the canvas is black says "I know that I'm a stain magnet and am trying my best to be seasonal yet cautious".

I'm generally wary when scents are described by their makers as "surprising"...you might want to be entranced or intrigued by a scent...but when was the last time you wanted to be surprised by one? For once, not even the skull on the packaging can convince me that a combination of black tea, anise, basil and citrus will be surprising in a good way...

Regardless of whether you are a water nymph (à la Esther Williams in any of her 1950's aquamusical performances)...or a confirmed landlubber (like myself)...it's hard to not be attracted to this Sinister Gibbon swimsuit. At first glance the drawings have a restrained classicism...but then you look a little more closely and have to ask yourself why this particular gibbon looks so shifty...and just what the parrot did to incur its wrath?

Take one part Liberty florals...one part 'message statement' à la Antoni & Alison...add a dash of 70's Ghanan afro-funk-fusion courtesy of the 3rd Generation Band...



And the end result is...a coin purse/make-up bag for the low maintenance/random small thing bag...which will enliven the inner recesses of your handbag for the very budget friendly price of $3.99.

Making a wish list entry is satisfying enough...there's the feeling that you're not just randomly running hither and thither buying 'stuff'...you have (drum roll, please) a plan. Of course, it's even more satisfying when you can actually check something, regardless of whether it's big or small, off the list. I added the size reference because it would be harder to be much tiny-er than my most recent purchase and still be visible to the naked eye.

Still, 'vintage travel charm' was on the list...and vintage travel charm was what I got (working under the mandate that the charm in question should, preferably, be from some spot that I had actually visited and under the proviso that other charms may be added to the collection at some future date). Now I just need to work on all the other entries on the list...and the 'to do' list sitting beside it.

It may be making the grass greener...the blooms lusher...and providing the squirrels and birds with a combination sauna/shower...but the (almost daily) summer downpours are beginning to get me down. Cold rain I can handle...thanks to numerous layers and a British constitution...but I just don't know what to do when confronted with varying degrees of heat and rain... One of these square umbrellas...a collaboration between Opening Ceremony and Parisian umbrella-fella Guy de Jean...would do the trick...the kerchief design and shape being a very seasonal combination. Equally cheery...though not quite as user friendly after the temperature hits a certain point...the combined forces of my (newly acquired) terry cloth sweater and (old purchase that I wish I could get more wear out of) yellow rain jacket...

I tend to think that you're headed for trouble if you own a company and then pick a name for it that (somewhat boastfully) implies a certain level of quality in your products. The tag line's one thing...Mr. Wurst the sausage maker can include the line "Best sausages in the North of England" in his advertising blurb and everyone writes it off as a zestful piece of hyperbole caused by overindulgence in pork products...but if the same Mr. Wurst actually calls his product "Best Sausage" it tends to act as an irritant to the consumer. "It's certainly a very fine sausage", they think, "but I can't say it's the best sausage that ever lay next to a pile of baked beans and a piece of fried bread". And, instinctively, they now have a little less faith in Mr. Wurst's judgment and honesty.

Such was my mindset as I approached the online store of J Crew's sister brand, Madewell...ready to find any small flaw that would suggest the articles in question were not, in fact, well made.

Wanting to be through in my research...and being, as you know, somewhat of a sucker for anything covered in stripes...I ordered three items. #1, a striped flutter tee...which, truth be told, made the model look a little broad around the shoulders but was much more flattering in real life. #2, a thin (striped, once again) Terry sweatshirt...the cousin of which appears in pictures of my 5 year old self...it's hard to argue with the appeal of something that whispers of childhood, and summer, and the beach (even Scottish ones...where the wind blows...and actual sunshine is a rare occurrence). And #3, a pair of khaki, linen, ankle-zipped, pants...

Cynic though I may be I have to admit that all three items are keepers...basics with a little more charm than the term implies. And yet...the name still bothers me...their construction is...fine...closer to Zara than H&M...yet not quite worthy of the moniker 'well made'.

Finally (now that Blogger is operational again...self being one of the 'lucky'ones affected by the random outages that happened yesterday)...a little more love...or, Book of Love, to be precise...for those who asked. Just click to enlarge...

Slightly random...oh, alright...exceedingly random...but when the mind is flitting from A to P like a near-sighted butterfly it's hard to argue these things... My neighborhood used to house...amongst the myriad of nail salons that seem to infiltrate any unused storefront like fleas on a dog...a shoe shop called Slithers. A store that I was never able to pass without unintentionally mis-reading the sign as (an admittedly misogynistic) "Slit hers". A trick of the mind that is unfortunately carrying over to this perfectly respectable snake print silk dress from Stella McCartney...

My usual reasoning for "oh, how nice it would be to have a garden"...as opposed to the area which the real estate agent whimsically referred to as a 'deck' but which even in the rosy glow of the summer sun is best described as a wooden area which houses the trash cans, some disturbingly fat pigeons, and the occasional city raccoon who feels like doing a little mountaineering...runs along the basic lines of desiring a little piece of land which, while it may not be "Forever England", would spread itself to enabling a patch of grass and space for a few blooms and veggies. Currently, however, my longing for a little sod to call my own is occasioned by the outdoor games from Jaques of London. Life, it has to be said, would just be better with a large jug of Pimm's...a giant outdoor Backgammon set...quoits...clock golf...or the myriad of other exquisitely made classic games. Just the thought of it makes me want to dash round yelling "anyone for tennis?" like the bit-part actor in a 1930's play.

I know what you're thinking...a garden is not an absolute necessity to make this scenario work. Technically I could wander over to the local park with my giant dominoes or outdoor Ludo...but it's not really the same when you're worrying if the homeless guy under the tree is going to try and join the fun...or the golden labrador over yonder is going to run off with one of your quoits.

I've always considered it somewhat of a mixed blessing that, from a fashion shopping perspective, my neighborhood is somewhat of a barren wasteland. On the one hand, I can venture out...safe in the knowledge that my sole financial expenditure will consist of some freshly ground coffee, the odd bottle of Chianti, or any of the other odds and ends that comprise the Hebden diet™. On the other, it's rare that I'll be able to say "I was running out to get some milk and stumbled across the quaintest little store".

Until today...when I was walking down the street and passed the Goorin hat shop which had just opened in the 'hood. Though...as Goorin first began opened its doors in Pittsburgh in 1895...I feel the word emporium would be a better choice. Wooden floors...antique furniture...and a reasonably priced selection of cardboard hatboxes (a rather elusive beast for those who wish to store their hats in modest luxury)...I was a mere voyeur, content to watch Mr. Heb try on fedoras and hombergs, until I spotted a hybrid. Part cowboy hat...part Hawaiian beach party...it seemed a perfect addition to my summer wardrobe...

I realize that it's an essential part of the summer experience...like your ice cream cone dissolving into a sticky mess before you've managed to consume a quarter of it...or your next door neighbor who practices for American Idol...in front of his open window...naked...at random times of the day and night...but why is it that you can change shoes no less than three times on a summer day only to discover that each pair will rub (and therefore cause agonizing pain) to a different part of your foot?

It's a test of endurance...a Japanese game show where only those impervious to blinding pain survive...a summer ritual...

"There's nothing like broadening your horizons", she claimed almost ironically. "Because in this way a singular fixation with skulls gives way to an addiction to stripes and a proclivity for gingham."

Which is why I find myself waxing lyrical about a gingham tissue holder...at one and the same time, the most useless piece of ephemera ever created...and a cute (and very inexpensive) pick-me-up for something that is usually relegated to a life of plastic-wrapped gloom in the bottom of your handbag.

Several years ago (actually, it's probably a few more than that...oh, how time flies) Barney's marketing boffins created The Book of Love...idealized pictures from the day-to-day life of a (pardon the pun) model New York-er. Slightly battered though it is around the edges at this point the BoL poster in my possession resides on the back of my closet door...slap bang in the middle of the mood board that (theoretically) provides inspiration whenever I venture inside.

The thing that struck me this morning is that...despite the passage of time...give or take the odd look...I'd still welcome most of the pieces from the BoL into my closet with open arms. Especially if the prices had remained the same...

Falling under the category of "a great idea but..." are these Venezia travel rings...

The aged silver...and the vintage enamel travel shield charm...merge into the ultimate summer accessory...a constant reminder of the vacations that we yearn for as we perform the day-to-day tasks that seem all the more irksome when the sun is shining...were it not for the fact that something jiggling around on my finger would push me over the brink after about five minutes of wear.

A necklace, however, would be an entirely different matter. Which is why, as I type this, I'm simultaneously trolling eBay for vintage charms...

"I walk the straight lines. I walk through the summer nights. I walk the silver rope of dreams. I walk through dawns of dawns. There’s not a lot that isn’t dying. I see people parading in front of each other like insects in a killing jar, watching each other die. I walk the straight lines throught the Christ machines. Through the eyes of throwaway people. Through the wards and the shores and the cracks in the skulls of the sidewalks. Through love’s howling vacancy. I am the freedom soil. I dig my own grave. I resurrect myself every night. I am all things to myself. I walk the straight lines. I walk the spiders’s jailhouse. I walk the think line, the thin line, the white line and all the line in between. I wish I could trade in my eyes." - Henry Rollins

Some people...let's call them the fortunate few...the lucky ones...the pains in the collective ass...win every contest they enter. The rest of us...the "marks"...enter contest after contest and get nothing more than writer's cramp and a sense of depression.

Thus far in my life I have won two things. The first...a bottle of whiskey...at a church bazaar...when I was in my pre-teens (those Scottish churches have very lax licensing laws)...which was donated to my mother's liquor cabinet. And the second, six shirts from 80's-90's label Workers for Freedom...the grand prize at a Fashion Cares benefit. When the six black and white shirts arrived I was thrilled...until I realized that their stark severity and boxy, yet voluminous, fit made me look like a nun on a bender. Yet I was unable to give them up. They were, with the exception of that bottle of Scotch from my youth, my only "win".

So they sat...in (in random order) my closet...a suitcase...a storage locker...another closet...a friend's basement...and several more suitcases...turning slightly yellower than they were in their prime...and gaining the added allure of a faint, yet omnipresent, hint of moth balls...

The other day, for whatever reason, I decided enough was enough...there is emotional baggage...and the literal baggage that you lug around with you for the majority of your life (too guilt ridden to throw it away). The dragon emblazoned buttons and W.F.F. tags have been kept...for some future project...and old time's sake...but the shirts are never to be seen again.

Travel broadens the mind...or so they say. It also exposes you (when you venture into the darkest recesses of an otherwise perfectly bland and generic hotel) to the kind of themed seafaring bar that would not be amiss in the Pirates of the Caribbean...complete, I might add, with Sinatra songs at 9 o'clock in the morning...and a busload of senior citizens for the mid-week lunch special. A watering hole made all the more curious by the fact that it is nowhere near the sea...

Twin fixations now that the sun (and attendant heat) have finally arrived...air conditioning...and expensive sunglasses. The latest to catch my (squinting) eyes are these rather snazzy leather accented twist on the classic aviator from Chloé.

"Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion." - Scott Adams And nothing...is more irrational...than dismissing a brand of jeans (in this case, Gap) simply because they are 'Oprah approved'. Yet that's what I did...until desperation...an ever-widening hole in the crotch of my favorite jeans...and the combination of a $24.99 sale price and $10 gift card...caused me to order a pair of their Easy Straight Patch jeans. They're soft as the proverbial baby's derriere...fit perfectly...and, while paler than I generally prefer, are the ideal worn-over-numerous-summers-at-the-beach shade. I'm not going to say that I've got over my irrational dislike of the cult of "O", but I am willing to accept some of the benefits...

...energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks" - Warren Buffett

A new addition to my ever-expanding to do list of DIY ideas...and a new way to get my fix of sweet, sweet, stripe love...this sequin striped tee from J Crew. "Why not just buy the darned thing?" you ask. Put quite simply, it's the neckline...wide boat necks and bad posture being a disastrous combination...but similarly shiny stripes...affixed to a crew neck...would be much more down my waterway...

Dear Diary, Quick personal question...nothing to do with halitosis or other "things that only your best friend will tell you"...just wondering, on a scale of 1 to 5, how shallow it would be to buy a bottle of Balenciaga's Paris Eau De Parfum purely on account of the bottle design? Not that the scent itself is anything to turn up one's nose at (so to speak)...a dense, wooded violet...too dark and heavy for summer...yet intriguing for the colder months. I'd definitely wear it and, in the words of the accompanying advertising blurb, leave a "unique trail"...yet it's the bottle that I dream of...resting in a haze of restrained decadence upon my dressing room table. All of which leaves me pondering the words of Oscar Wilde...

As you now by now, I love a pun...the further something falls into the ghastly, murky, depths of pun-dom...visual or verbal...the happier I am. So, really, how could I resist this speaker? I'm sorry...I truly am...but I have to do this..."It's da bomb!"

...With a red hat which doesn't go and doesn't suit me, And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves, And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter" - Jenny Joseph

There are types...the "good" girl who's constantly attracted to "bad" boys...the "sweet tooth" who can't pass a candy store without getting a fix...and, in my case, the "person who recognizes that they are not really a sandal wearer but doesn't seem to be able to look away". The latest pair to catch my eye...and start a whole new round of mental debate about whether these could be the ones that would turn me into a fully-fledged sandal wearer (stones, grit, and everything else that would work its way in there and cause discomfort be damned!)...are these leather and denim beauties from Gap's Design Editions. Strangely, I find something very alluring about the hodge podge of styles...they're like a bizarre cooking recipe...a dash of espadrille...a pinch of ballet shoe...a soupçon of the French Riviera...and a drop of Celine-like restraint.

They shouldn't work...but they do...

To me, this straw hat with built-in sunglasses is very 1960's-female-spy-Monica-Vitti-as-Modesty-Blaise. Something that, of course, forces me to ask myself the age old question that one faces when attracted to something because of the associations it brings to mind...while it may be...am I?

Or...how to waste a perfectly good Saturday...

The Angry Birds iPhone app...

And a young, drunk, Oliver Reed playing a young, drunk, psychopath in Hammer House of Horror's Paranoiac (alongside Janette Scott who, as those of you who are Rocky Horror Picture Show fans will know, fought a "Triffid that spits poison and kills")...

One man's 'elegant' is another man's 'frump'...the words that, unfortunately, kept swimming round in my head as I looked at the images of Creatures of Comfort's washed silk, full, below-the-knee skirt. Perhaps the 'f' word is too harsh...stirred by memories of similarly shaped skirts lurking in the depths of my adolescent memories...but the 'e' word doesn't feel quite right (and is CoC's word, not mine). Perhaps it's just a mental block on my part...how would you rate this skirt...'e'...'f'...or some other letter?

You know what they say..." a skull a day keeps the doctor away"...what?...it should be an apple?...well, if you say so...though, personally, I get much more of a zip in my step when faced with a beautifully crafted cranium rather than a Granny Smith. Which means that this black onyx, white jade, and yellow gold number...featuring what I can only describe as 'love seat' skulls...puts double the bounce in my stride. A feeling which is, sadly, quickly lost when I look at the price tag...

After altogether too much to-ing and fro-ing I think I have finally laid the "Great Sneaker Quest of 2010" to rest. At this point I feel like a cross between Jason (taking a break from gadding about with the Argonauts to do a little shoe shopping)...and Goldilocks (altogether too picky and a bit of a pain in the neck)...having veered from my trusty Converse (still beloved but something that I need a break from)...to leather sneakers...and all manner of styles in between. The "winner"...medium gray tennis shoes from Bensimon (aka the French girl's Converse)...less of a complete change...more of a side-step across borders...whose old school, retro charm feels like it will work well with the majority of my warm weather clothes. At this rate I'll have figured out my summer wardrobe sometime around the year 2031...

So much of what falls under the banner of "beauty products" is so price-y that when you find something that falls into the bargain category...smells divine...and generally makes your getting-up-and-facing-the-world experience a little bit better...you want to shout about it from the roof tops. Oh, that's just me? Alright, at the very least you want to share the information...

So it is with the French Lemon Verbena Triple Milled Soap from Trader Joe's...my usual haunt for things to go inside the body, i.e. European cheeses and bottles of Chianti, rather than on its exterior. For a mere $3.99 you get a super-sized bar of soap...which creates copious amounts of sudsy lather when confronted with water...and leaves both you and the bathroom enveloped in a miasma of 'vacationing in the South of France Verbena'. Bliss.

You can tell how many years have passed since you bought a specific item (even if, like me, you are disturbingly bad with dates...anniversaries...or any form of calendar-based remembrance) when something that, at the time, struck you as expensive and caused pangs of purchase guilt is transformed into a "bargain" when measured against its modern brethren.

Case in point, my over-sized Prada sunglasses...bought, after much angst-ridden soul searching (and checking of funding) probably longer ago than I think...worn incessantly ever since...much beloved...

...and pretty much fixed in my mind as "the most expensive sunglasses that I would lust over". Fast forward to the present...and these tortoiseshell beauties from Paris-based model-turned-designer Emmanuelle Khanh...

Yours...though definitely not mine...for the low, low price of five hundred and ten dollars. At what point, I have to ask, did sunglasses become so expensive?

Chore day...and I'm rather hoping that I'm not the only person to feel a sense of calm serenity when I'm buffing away at the polish on my boots...

"How doth the little busy bee Improve each shining hour And gather honey all the day From every opening flower! How skilfully she builds her cell! How neat she spreads the wax! And labours hard to store it well With the sweet food she makes. In works of labour or of skill, I would be busy too; For Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do." - Isaac Watts If the bee is industrious surely the beekeeper deserves a little credit for assisting the process...someone in days gone by obviously thought so when they awarded this medal (for services to the bee presumably...though, as the text is in Dutch, that's pure supposition).