Not your Everage style icon...

Happy New Year!

The ShopCurious style icon for 2012 is Dame Edna Everage – for the following reasons:

1) Dame Edna is most admired for her unique sense of style, which has been much emulated. Margaret Thatcher adopted her hairstyle - and her flamboyant clothing and accessories have been widely copied by Madonna and Lady Gaga. A curious trend is that, in 2012, almost everyone will be after a copycat pair of Dame Edna’s trademark curiosity glasses…

2) Edna is knowledgeable on all manner of issues - from fashion and beauty, to gardening and politics – and she's not afraid to speak her mind.

3) She's also a vintage treasure. (Never underestimate the advantage of age – after all, old is the new young).

4) Edna loves flowers too, especially gladioli – and floral inspired fashions are another key trend for 2012.

5) She also has a great sense of humour, which is just what we need in these times of economic uncertainty. Dame Edna’s down to earth opinions are the perfect antidote to political correctness, technocracy and spiritually debilitating celebutarditis.

6) Unlike Madge Allsop, Dame Edna is naturally beautiful, and would never subject herself to plastic surgery or artificial enhancement. “I'm beautiful inside. I think it’s what I radiate that people love. There's an inner beauty there,” she explains on her website.





7) She’s curiously clever as well - according to Wikipedia, “Dame Edna has transcended her modest origins as a satire of Australian suburbia to become one of the most successful, best known and best loved comedy characters of all time.”

Dame Edna is not just a living curiosity with stupendous spectacles, she genuinely has style with brains…

Do you?

Memories of mother

I was rummaging around in a cupboard the other day, when I stumbled upon some old family photographs. I thought I’d share this one of my mother as a child – the curious scribblings around the border demonstrate my early artistic flair.











Talking of which, the Mothers’ Day card I chose this year, courtesy of the inspired Edward Monkton at Really Good cards, looks curiously childlike in its design. But what a lovely message – and so appropriate for my long suffering mother, bless her. Of course, I’m not saying that she isn’t beautiful on the outside too…






It’s a shame we can’t stay young forever, but ephemera like photographs are such a lovely way of remembering how things used to be. If you’re the nostalgic type, you might like the collectable film programme of Shirley Temple in Dimples that’s available at ShopCurious. It’s full of wonderful retro photographs of the young Hollywood icon.

Anyway, have a Happy Mothers' Day! I’m feeling all sentimental now...

Are you?

Icon of beauty

In memory of Dame Elizabeth Taylor who sadly died today at the age of 79.

Famed for her striking violet eyes and fiery temper, Elizabeth Taylor was the classic beauty of her age. The child star of National Velvet was a fine actress – most notably in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, in which she starred with the love of her life and on-off husband, Richard Burton. ShopCurious pays tribute to Elizabeth Taylor with clips from these films:

This is how I will remember her.

Will you?

2011, romantic pink heaven?

Happy New Year!

The ShopCurious style icon for 2011 is Dame Barbara Cartland – for the following reasons:

1) In keeping with our current nostalgia for (and desire to mourn) all things past, she died in 2000 at the age of 98. Death style is the new lifestyle, after all...

2) Barbara Cartland was renowned for her curiously unique, eccentric style and usually dressed in coral pink - a hot fashion trend for 2011.

3) She was a trend setter in other ways too, being one of the first to carry pretty little pooches as fashion accessories under her arm.




4) Dame Barbara was a working woman, with her own opinions and income from her many romantic novels.

5) She wrote extensively on the topics of love, marriage, etiquette and family values (more on this in my post at The Dabbler).

6) She was Princess Diana’s step grandmother (and therefore related by marriage to Prince William, the soon-to-be-married future King of England).

Above all, Barbara Cartland had style with brains…

Do you?

Curious Christmas greetings

Forget the Adoration of the Magi, Christmas has become a time for all things kitsch and over the top. Last year we sent you Christmas greetings from Chelsea.

This year ShopCurious brings tidings of glad joy from wonderfully olde worlde Fulham. Yes, there was snow in London very recently, but as far as I’m aware, it’s never looked quite like this…

Other curiously quirky Christmas touches I’ve spotted recently include:









Crazy Christmas lights in the backstreets of Battersea.










A knitted nativity scene.








Timelessly thought provoking children’s art.











A stuffed stag's head decoration (from my guest loo).









A curious Christmas icon from Mexico (looks Christmassy whether it is or not).






My mother’s Christmas cake – purely ornamental and totally excessive as no one ever eats it, but she insists on baking one every year - and probably has several from Christmases past rotting in tins at home. And not forgetting all the peculiarly coloured festive drinks (read more about my experience of these over at The Dabbler).









Anyway, for those who are curious, I can confirm that Father Christmas didn't quite make it back to the North Pole - due to the snow he got stuck in Fulham.

Wishing you a fabulously curious Christmas Day wherever you are.

Are you?

Superstar v Supersloane style

Nowadays we have style icons, but a few decades ago they were still ‘heroines.’ The Princess of Wales became the ‘Supersloane’ heroine of the 1980s. Her transformation from the bashful Mark II Sloane Ranger ‘Lady Di Look’ to English romantic taffeta-clad Mark I style was amusingly documented in ‘80s style bible, The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook (intriguingly subtitled The First Guide To What Really Matters in Life).

BC, before Charles, Diana wore the Young Sloane wardrobe, central to which were granny’s pearls and “ruffled shirts with ribbons at the neck”. We’ve an original 1980s example at ShopCurious, made by fellow heroine of Wales, Laura Ashley - the designer behind the popular homespun look of the day. In fact, as sales of her Victorian and Edwardian inspired floral dresses and frilly bow tied shirts rocketed, Ashley also underwent something of a metamorphosis from small time dressmaker to international business woman.

What’s so curious about British heroines of the early ‘80s is that, despite increasing power and presence within the workplace (think Margaret Thatcher), they still deferred to time honoured, traditional values and maintained their ladylike propriety. Lady Di stayed well out of the press until 1980 – she was ‘never café society.’ And Laura Ashley never courted attention for her success in the competitive world of high street fashion.

The Princess of Wales, or PoWess (pronounced Powys) and her Laura Ashley style were much emulated by young girls, especially in the UK, but farther afield too. Her sensible Pearly Princess, fresh-faced, effortless look and impeccable manners (instilled by a nanny) commanded the respect of young and old alike.

As we know, Diana retained her individuality, but in an appropriately retro-progressive way: “Like many of her contemporaries – flat sharing SW7 and SW10 girls under 20 – she did the old things… but with a new flair.” Initially at least, she stuck to the rules, and everything seemed hunky dory and everyone seemed reasonably happy…

Now there don’t seem to be so many rules. British society is much more of a free for all. Pink cheeked, naturally buxom country girls have gone all beer-bellied, teeth whitened and tattooed. Their dream goal of marrying Prince Charming replaced with a burning desire to appear on the Shock X-Factor.

But have we started looking back to the past again, with the current revival in all things homespun and vintage? Kate Middleton certainly has some genuine colour in her cheeks and seems suitably un-cool, old fashioned and demure, like a proper lady.

But whilst Kate may be a Supersloane heroine in the making, perhaps it’s iconic celebrity style we still seek to emulate…

Anyway, what really matters to you? Do share your thoughts and comments...

Will you?

Matriarchal style icon

Having been submerged in a sea of black at Paris Fashion Week, it's refreshing to see Bryan Adams’ stunning photos of a vibrantly colourful Camila Batmanghelidjh in April’s edition of British Vogue. You probably need no excuse to buy a copy, but this fascinating feature makes a very worthwhile reason.

The Iranian born psychotherapist and social entrepreneur is interviewed by Gwyneth Paltrow about her amazing work for inner city children, through her charity, Kids Company. The article also features work from the forthcoming ‘Shoebox Living’ exhibition at Haunch of Venison, W1, for which children were asked to recreate a room from their house in a shoebox.



Camila is an unlikely style icon, whose powerfully positive personality is reflected through her bold, bright and highly individual choice of clothing. She says she finds the fabric for her clothes at Peckham Market and pieces bits together to create her own garments. Her original, handmade outfits give added impact to an already larger than life character, putting shrinking violets to shame. Camila’s voluptuous, matriarchal style also makes her the perfect subject for photographers and artists: her portrait (by Dean Marsh) even hangs in London’s National Gallery. I love the images (see below) in an article by writer and photographer Fran Monks.



If you’re also a fan of Camila’s look, you’ll probably like some of the handcrafted, ethnic inspired clothing at ShopCurious - tribal dresses by Bezemymailan and dramatic printed silk shifts by Lola Faturoti, for instance.

Camila’s much more than a style icon: she's a role model and mother figure to many impoverished children, though I expect they admire her exotic clothing too.

Camila offers kids the chance to use their energy and imagination in constructive ways, through art projects and creative endeavours. Everyone seems to love her - and I bet she receives tons of Mothers’ Day cards. With all her amazing work, I’m curious to know how she still manages to find the time to make her own clothes…

Are you?