Spring Is Here

As I write this looking out on to a gloomy wet street - spring really does seem a long way off, though the hyacinths in our courtyard garden are just breaking in to bloom.  The fashion industry always way ahead of time has already started delivering spring/summer stock.  Our first delivery this year is from one of our favourite brands ‘Scotch & Soda’ and ’Maison Scotch’.  We are really excited about stocking this cool sought after Dutch label - having beaten off competition we were chosen as the appointed stockist in our area.  
Scotch & Soda make garments that suit each individual man; the garments are of high quality, rich in detail and best of all cool fashion at an affordable price.  The Amsterdam based design team has come up with an exciting SS12 collection designed with great focus on small details that the label is known for.  The collection has been inspired by New York street styles, Japans’ innovate design and the 
‘je ne sais quoi’ sense of style of Parisiennes.  The team say creating a collection is a journey of gathering souvenirs, wandering around antique markets looking for vintage treasures and making mental notes along the way.
For women’s SS12 Maison Scotch there are sun faded colours mixed with more fresh, bright and bold tones.  Splashes of colour sprinkled throughout the collection, on accessories & detailing to make each garment stand alone as something quite special.  Fabrics used are delicate washed silks, cotton silk blends, and natural linens and washed twills.  
Do look at Amsterdam Blauw SS12 shoot.  In this video favourite Scotch & Soda male model the extremely handsome Christian Goran talks about his life and passions.  He certainly is just more than a pretty face!

Soho Oasis

Andrew Edmunds Restaurant

Andrew Edmunds

Linking trendy Carnaby Street and Berwick Street market is Broadwick Street - off this is a quiet backwater Lexington Street.  Here you will find an eclectic mix of restaurants & shops.  One of my favourite restaurants is ‘Andrew Edmunds’, Andrew is an antiquarian print dealer by trade with his shop next door to the restaurant.  Some I feel would find this venue rather cramped, as its small & very busy - you can only book a table a week in advance and the restaurant is on two levels, ground floor & basement.  The décor is somewhat shabby, but this has a charm all of its own.  The dark interior is lit with candles which creates a romantic, cosy ambience.  It is totally unpretentious, staff are friendly & knowledgeable - mainly actors between jobs.  I would liken the restaurant to a bistro one would find in the back streets of Paris.  The menu is short & changes daily, just good well cooked rustic style food sensibly priced.  The wine list is excellent - no greedy mark-ups, so you will find exceptional bottles at much lower prices than other restaurants.  Do try and visit I know you won’t be disappointed.  (0207 437 5708)
The area is a foodie paradise - opposite is ’Mildreds’ vegetarian restaurant that was established in the 80’s and still going strong.  They serve excellent well priced food in friendly
informal surroundings.  Next door but one is ’Aurora’ which has a modern European menu that changes monthly.  In the warmer months you can eat outside in the courtyard garden.  Other restaurants in the area include Fernandez & Wells food & wine bar, Café Gourmand, Wagamama - you really are spoilt for choice.

Antiquarian Prints

For those of you that followed the channel 4 documentary ‘Riches to Rags’ featuring Lily Allen and her sister Sarah their shop ‘Lucy in Disguise’ is next door to Andrew Edmunds.  It looks pretty cool from the outside with its clever façade of gold plastic discs
that twinkle as the air moves them.  The stock inside is an Aladdin’s cave for all vintage clothing fanatics.
While here do go back to Broadwick Street and visit Cowling & Wilcox which is an absolute must for art supplies.  In fact the shop is quite diverse, we bought an excellent selection of Christmas cards and wrap at really good prices.

Dinner à deux

Running a shop over the festive period involves long hours with little time to prepare for my own Christmas.  Not that I’m complaining - in fact I’m extremely grateful that we were busy considering all the economic gloom.  I did manage to decorate the Christmas tree the evening of the 21st - at least it was done for Christmas Eve - the rest of the house had to wait until Christmas day morning!
Having worked 14 days without a break we were feeling pretty wrecked and selfishly engineered it that we were on our own Christmas day to enjoy a quiet relaxing day, just pottering around, with family visiting on Boxing Day.

We decided to have our meal Christmas day night and I drew on my culinary skills from a previous life as a successful restaurateur and prepared a fairly light dish of a large puff pastry case filled with seafood in a light creamy sauce accompanied by roasted tomatoes on the vine.  I cheated and used Just Roll pastry - it really is just as good as making your own.  The fish came from our excellent fish stall which is under the market house in Tetbury each Wednesday.  Having prepared a béchamel sauce,  I sweated off in butter finely chopped red onion , reduced white wine, tarragon leaves - to intensify the flavour I always add a  Knorr fish stock cube and finish with a good dollop of double cream.  A dear friend kindly gave us a posh bottle of champagne from Harvey Nicks, which proved to be the perfect accompaniment to this Christmas day supper.

Last Minute Christmas Cake

I know the thought of making a Christmas cake fills most people with dread - probably anticipating a dry overcooked cake;  I have devised this easy  foolproof recipe that delivers a lovely rich & moist cake every time.  The ultimate secret is to use an Aga Cake Baker, I have a pretty ancient one - a new one will cost approx £90, but you can pick up a good second-hand on EBay.

To make the cake: line an 8”/21cm tin with greaseproof paper.
Ingredients:  1 cup dark brown soft muscovado sugar                           1 tspn bicarbonate soda
                     375g tin crushed pineapple                                              1 tspn mixed spices
                     8oz/225g raisins                                                              4oz/110g butter    3 eggs
                     4oz/110g sultanas                                                            1 cup plain wholemeal flour                                                                
                     40z/110g currants                                                            1 cup self raising flour

Method: Soak the fruit overnight in an alcohol of your choice.
Put into a saucepan the sugar, pineapple, dried fruit, bicarb, spices and butter, boil for a good five minuets, or until the colour goes a dark brown, keep stirring to avoid the mixture from sticking to the saucepan.  Allow the mixture to cool then stir in the eggs and fold in the flour.  Put in the prepared tin and bake for approx 1.5 hours at 180c/gas 4, reduce heat and leave for another 20 minutes or until the skewer comes out clean.   When cool remove from tin and peel off the greaseproof paper.  Place on a cake board, brush the top with apricot jam, rollout the marzipan and place on top of the cake, and decorate with ready to roll fondant icing, or royal icing if you prefer to finish with a snowy effect.  Fix a decorative cake band to the side and add a few festive decorations to the icing.  Hey presto you should now have a delicious/moist cake that looks kitsch and festive.

London Vibe

Breakfast At The Wolseley

Although I count myself lucky that I live & work in Tetbury a beautiful town in the Cotswolds - I do occasionally crave the vibrant energy of London.  Sunday morning we left Tetbury at 7am and by 8.45 we were parked in Dover Street to meet a special friend photographic agent Jo Clark for a birthday breakfast at The Wolseley a favourite venue of ours.  If you consider going - do book in advance as it gets pretty busy - the fishcakes served with poached eggs is very good.  After a long lazy breakfast and catching-up on news & gossip we headed to Marylebone High Street for some retail therapy.



Marylebone has a village feel to it due to the eclectic mix of shops favourites are Daunts Books which has the most beautiful period premises the Conran Shop is hip, modern cool, Rococo Chocolates is chic but quaint - my list of desirable shops in this area is endless.  This clever retail mix is the work of The Howard de Walden Trust which owns 90 prime acres including over 300 listed buildings.  Their ethos ensures the area doesn’t look like every other UK High Street by their careful selection and leasing of properties to businesses that compliment each other.

We next walked over to Regent Street which has been pedestrianised - absolutely packed with people enjoying the free fairground attractions and street entertainment.  Hamleys toy shop was shoulder to shoulder with shoppers - what recession?  Just on from here is the ultimate shopping experience at Liberty’s department store, their Christmas window displays are very clever - a visual treat.  As you can imagine, the store was packed with festive shoppers and tourists, our mission was Christmas cards & gift wrap - but the shelves were depleted, should have bought them on our last visit.

It was now approaching a time to think about going home, we decided to walk back via Burlington Arcade, and at this time of year they roll-out the red carpet throughout the arcade making one feel very regal.  The arcade has gorgeous shops with beautiful window displays; one of my favourites is Penhaligon’s.  Having had a really enjoyable day it was time to head home.

Liberty Home

Burlington Arcade

Penhaligon's

Window To The World

Having traded in Tetbury for almost eight years I have decorated several Christmas windows.  The themes have been bold or understated, as we have a fairly small shop window the display has to have pavement power to draw people in to the shop.  I rarely use stock/products and rely more on decorative impact.  Two of my favourite windows have been a painted black backdrop, black painted twigs decorated with red glittering leaves and exotic red birds of paradise - at night the window was stunning.  The second was all white with white suspended twigs, crystal drops and white doves, a base of  fake snow and iridescent glitter - it looked magical.

Last year I went totally over the top with a burlesque theme to promote Wolford hosiery.  Weeks were spent creating a theatre themed backdrop which consisted of gold glittered columns overlaid with a black flocked baroque design.  Behind these were red silk drapes edged using antique gold/red bullion fringe - the finished effect was bold and dramatic.  Centre stage was a doe-eyed blonde haired mannequin wearing Wolford stockings and French lace basque.   In my naivity I didn’t realise how controversial the display would be.  Opinions fell in to two camps - those that understood the tongue-in-cheek humour and sadly those that found it too provocative!  We even had people coming in to the shop asking if we were a brothel  as it looked like an Amsterdam red light district window - please!  A lot of people did like it for it’s originality and a lot of men put the model on their Christmas wish list!

After last years mixed response we decided to play it safe and work with a product based display.  Over the summer we collected fir cones which I painted white, twigs which I covered with crystal encrusted garlands and using the trusty glue gun  fixed the cones to the branches.  The finished result is simple but effective - all prospective customers are now clear about what we are peddling!  

Retrosexual Male

I have read in the press that over the past three years the sales of razors have been dropping dramatically globally as men finally reclaim their masculinity after a decade of preened and polished metro sexual males being the in look. Hirsute guys are definitely back with brute force - forget 70’s moustache - 80’s designer stubble - 90’s goatees - the full blown beard is the in style. Men’s magazines such as GQ style, esquire, Dapper Dan & Sunday Times Style are promoting this new found made confidence to embrace their facial hair. Just look at the international rugger boys in all their grizzly bear glory - Sebastian Chabal, Patrick Danahy, Adam Kleeburger, Dan Cole are all rocking this strong masculine look.




Fashion being always ahead of trend has been using hirsute models for a while now. The leader of the pack is French model Patrick Petitjean leading the way with his magnificent beard gaining legions of adoring fans writing blogs about him. Now there is a whole host of bearded Adonis’s fronting major advertising campaigns. Hot favourites are Benjamin Dukhan - Jean Paul Gaultier, Paraskevas Boubourakas - Bruuns Bazaar, Jack Guinness - Oscar Jacobson, Christian Goran - Scotch & Soda. These models look rugged and distinctively different with their luxurious beards from their

Metrosexual counterparts. They look more than capable of doing physical hard work rather than worrying about their fake tan and body waxing.

No wonder women are falling for this look even devoting websites to this trend - .kuchenbaeckerin.tumblr.com or http://www.girlswholovebeardsclub.com/ .

For the male point of view try http://www.thepowerofbeards.com/ or www.thebearded.tumblr.com