From factory floor to hip new eaterie: Hixter Bankside puts meat on the plate (chicken or steak to share) and major Brit art on its walls. Launched in the summer at 16 Great Guildford Street, it boasts a range of fare for the avid carnivore (accompanied by lots of greens) in several relaxed settings, together with friendly service. The restaurant, just off Southwark Street, is the seventh opened by celebrated chef, Mark Hix. The dress to dine in, on this occasion, is an imperially purple silk chiffon piece, by Diane von Furstenberg.
The end of colour... as we know it. More specifically, at Turner Contemporary in Margate, where its latest exhibition, Summer of Colour, came to a close earlier this month. Celebrating the works of Dutch artist, Piet Mondrian, from early landscapes and a dazzlingly red windmill to his later distinctive lozenges of colour which inspired the late Yves Saint Laurent, in 1965, to incorporate those block shapes onto shift dresses. I decided to step out in my favourite hot-pink trousers, last worn in 'Carluccio's, South Ken'. The trousers are by British designer, Ally Capellino, who launched her womenswear collection in 1980 and is now best known for her accessories range. My breezy chiffon top is suitably colourful and graphic, whilst the shoes and sunnies, by Roberto Cavalli, are retro but sleek.The three year-old art space on Margate's seafront, designed by David Chipperfield, was also showing ethereal light installations by Brooklyn-based American artist, Spencer Finch, in turn inspired by Turner, who was both schooled and visited the town on sketching trips. Outdoors, on the terrace, contemporary Dutch artist Krijn de Koonig placed 'Dwelling' whose strong Mediterranean colours certainly heated up the Kent town by a few degrees on a September afternoon.
I am indeed amongst the Lady of the Woods - a host of silver birches on London's South Bank and wearing purple: suede jacket, a silk rose and a strip on my patent boots. Whilst the jacket whose colour and cut-of-collar shouts out the '70s, the rest of me is decidedly this century with a Fendi scarf, InWear skinnies... and that rucksack!
http://www.fendi.com/ii/en
http://www.inwear.com/gb/
Pit stops can in themselves offer up picture opportunities, particularly if you're wearing a photogenically purple dress. This one has little provenance... a no-label, floor-length woven raffia piece, purchased at Past Caring, an old shopping haunt of mine on Essex Road, Islington. I can't even recall its price but it certainly was not expensive. All I know is I still love wearing it - most memorably one evening at a French wedding. Today it is a dress in transit - on a bus - enjoying a breakfast of coffee and a croissant, a sit-down pause, and a powder-my-nose moment. Worn with some Gucci sunglasses, a trio of vintage amethyst necklaces and a pair of earrings from Istanbul, the dress requires no further ornamentation. The shoes (worn recently) are by Pons Quintana, and the bag, by Emma Bernhardt, is in the borough of kitsch but that's fine by me!
http://www.timeout.com/london/shopping/past-caring
https://plus.google.com/102326411293031965781/about?gl=uk&hl=en
http://www.gucci.com/uk/home
http://www.ponsquintana.com/en
http://london.yalwa.co.uk/ID_118851592/Emma-Bernhardt-Designs-Portobello-Road.html
