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
I do not know how long I have owned this dress but I know where I bought it... Past Caring on Essex Road, Islington, and probably after a slap-up breakfast at nearby Alfredo's. Both these favourites are still going strong (although the latter is now known as S&M Cafe). The dress is equally evergreen, probably older than me, with no discernible label. It is plain-cut in black and white printed cotton, with a floral refrain. And it fits as only dresses of a certain era did, when figures were fulsome. It never fails to celebrate summer with me... and I can wear it with any amount of different accessories. This time: modern mono Ray-Bans, African livid-green beads and enamel ring, and perspex... both with my beach bag and on my Paul Smith strappy heels. I am about to have a recuperative cuppa in the members' room, at another favourite of mine: the one-and-only V&A.
http://www.timeout.com/london/shopping/past-caring
http://www.classiccafes.co.uk/Best.html
http://www.ray-ban.com/uk
http://www.paulsmith.co.uk/uk-en/shop/
http://www.vam.ac.uk/
