Why Christmas 2014 is already the best ever

I love Christmas. I love food, friends and time spent with my family and of course, I love presents and surprising people and giving things (including things to myself!) It's my birthday just after Christmas as well, so the whole time of year kind of feels like a festivus of me..

That said, this particular Christmas is so far working out to be quite spectacular in its own right, for several reasons...

1. I'm pretty much organised as far as gifts go. 

It's the absolute dream, no? M is sorted (thank you Apple for your unnervingly reliable and accurate shipping times). My sister's gift will be ready to collect next week and my mother's present is on its way from Hill Smith Gallery as we speak. I have all my jam jars ready for jam-making, the fruits of which will be going to my extended family and other friends. My kris kringle presents for the guests at my dinner party are purchased and merely await wrapping. I am feeling like a pretty smug organised beaver right now. Feel free to hate me :)

2. The balance of social and quiet relaxation has been struck

Everyone likes a party. Hosting one makes you feel completely grown up and sophisticated, being invited makes you feel incredibly popular.  Having nothing on your social calendar through December would be a bit like that time all your friends were invited to THE end-of-year school party and you waited expectantly before deciding the day before that you really didn't want to go anyway and you'd much rather get a headstart on your summer projects #sadface

However, in adulthood, there is such as thing as too much busyness. Too much work, too much social stuff after hours, not enough sleep/relationship time. What you're going for is a balance: enough fun times out with friends and new outfits and hip eateries so you don't feel like a hermit plus enough quiet time on the couch in your big underpants so you still have energy come Monday morning.

3. Christmas entertaining and food is sorted

Obviously first up is the dinner party this weekend and while I've still got to do the shopping, I do have a very comprehensive list which should make it a breeze in Woolworths on Saturday morning in my gym gear. 

Christmas eve dinner is just M, myself and my mother and as we all like each other and get along splendidly, the dinner is really just going to be an average Sunday night and I can do those standing on my head. 

Christmas day, it's just the two of us. Right now, I'm sure, there are numerous loved-up couples hating us because their Christmas day will be spent traveling to various parents and siblings homes to join in a lunch with 30 other people, some of whom you have not met and many of whom you may not particularly like. 

My lot is scattered this year and so, dear friends, we are celebrating that unicorn of life's social situations: a truly quiet Christmas.  There's no pressure to produce enough food to feed a football team, with enough variety in the sides/salads to quell Auntie Mary's judgmental eye and make it all look easy when they turn up at a quarter past 10, squawking for nosh.  

M and I will be waking up when we're ready, walking the dog around Kangaroo Point and then settling in with prawns, fresh bread, cocktail sauce and a bottle of crisp white wine, all to ourselves, before an afternoon that looks like this:

And that, to me, is the mark of a truly superb Christmas.  It's been a very big year, 2014, and I'm looking forward to briefly kicking back :) xo

Prepare for landing

So Monday morning looked like this as the pilots carefully brought us down into Brisbane:

Best. Travel. Handbag. EVER.

Noise-cancelling headphones - a must, even in business

It's been a big week, mostly because work doesn't really stop just because you're not in the office.  My in-tray was plenty full when I walked in on Tuesday morning and it's been a big effort to get things slightly back to under control.  I've been extremely tired all week and I can't tell if it's due to jet lag or just because there is a lot going on and I'd be tired whether I'd been overseas or not.

Friday is even more welcome than usual and I thought it would be a good idea to bust out my lovely new Jimmy Choo flats:

Top: LK Bennett
Jeans: Country Road
Jacket: L'Agence
Flats: Jimmy Choo
Bag: Chloe

Finding a polished office-friendly pair of flats is something of a challenge. Frankly, heels add authority to any work-look, so flats that still make you look like you own the corner office, instead of a student doing a summer internship, are more rare than one might think. Black patent with a pointed toe are extremely transitional and make any more relaxed outfit look smart.  I used to have a couple of pairs of Christian Louboutin Pigalle flats but they got tossed in the great wardrobe edit (after many, many years of good wear, I should add) so these were a timely addition to my wardrobe.

I'm looking forward to a fairly busy, but fun social weekend. It's M's and my Christmas party on Saturday night so Saturday will be a flurry of early Pilates, grocery shopping, house-cleaning and cooking before welcoming our guests for a night of great conversation and (hopefully) great food.

I hope you all have wonderful weekends :) xo

New obsessions for summer

Country Road Zelda sandals

Probably unsurprisingly but being in Chicago in sub-zero temps seriously sharpened my appetite for warm weather fashions. Summer entertaining calls for bejewelled slides, sleek monochrome separates and a generally pared-back look that leaves you free to enjoy yourself and be either a scintillating guest or the unflappable hostess :)

1. Summer slides

I've picked up the jewelled slides from Country Road above with a spend-and-save (also ordered a sneaky Palo Tuberose candle which will come in handy with all the upcoming entertaining at our place - winning!) I love a statement slide that lets you show off a beautiful pedicure while also being supremely comfortable.

I'm also quite interested in the pair below from Witchery:

2. Summer jacket

I saw this ivory bomber in the Outnet clearance and thought it would be a lovely light cover up, perfect to slip over black jersey dresses when the air-con is a little too cold:

3. Camisole

This is a little bit of a gamble for me. I've been intrigued by this Witchery camisole ever since I saw it on a girl out for Friday drinks. She'd clearly come straight from work and honestly, under a blazer it just looked great and when she slipped her jacket off after her date arrived, it looked even better.  I'm not sure if I'll be able to carry it off but I'm prepared to at least experiment, perhaps over white jeans. It also comes in ivory, which would look smashing over navy skinny jeans, no?   :) xo

Flying home

As I write this I am in Chicago O'Hare and shortly going to board my flight to LA, connecting to Brisbane, Queensland. I added a little navy Hermes for 'flying chic' and I am so excited to be heading home to my family, M and my fat dog and our beautiful apartment and sunny Queensland summer :) xo

5 things that suck about internet shopping

As you know, I'm a passionate online shopper.  A couple of posts ago, I did a list of the top 5 things that make internet shopping awesome. However, I'm a balanced sort of person and I thought it would be best to be honest and share some of the less lovely things about clicking 'purchase' and waiting/hoping as a bunch of internet elves somewhere magically scrape money off your Visa debit...

1. Stuff doesn't fit

This is self-explanatory. Sometimes a brand is small or large for size, sometimes the cut is very small across the bust or roomy in the waist. Frustrating.

2.  Stuff doesn't look how you thought it would look

In this scenario, stuff does fit. In fact, it fits just fine. But the fabric or the cut or the embellishment or some detail that you would definitely have noticed had you been able to look at/try on this item in real life, makes you look bizarre or otherwise renders the garment unwearable.

One of the biggest factors at play here is the way products and clothes in particular, are presented to us for online consumption.  In order to maximise the realism of the internet shopping experience, Net-a-Porter does a superb job styling, modelling (including videos) and otherwise marketing individual pieces. They use real models who walk against a bland background so that the clothes really stand out.  You can see how the clothes look in front, back, profile and full length.  However, at the end of the day sometimes you still lift the clothes out of the box and think 'Ah. Well, if I'd known it really looked/felt/wore like THAT...' At the end of the day, I don't have the model's height/weight/modest bust. I'm short and curvy and that's the end of it. And some styles will never, ever look as good on me as they do on other people.

To be honest though, in my experience it is rarely the size or style that's 'wrong' (except when I'm going through my fantasy moments where I'm totally 5ft 10in and weigh 50kg.) It's far more likely that I will obsess over an item, stalk it madly, buy it, anticipate it, rip of the packaging when it arrives like a werewolf hacking into a butcher's delivery only to find the fabric is impossibly heavy and unwearable for the weather we really have in Brisbane 95% of the year - #sadface.

3. Orders get mixed up/partly delivered/can't be fulfilled

Most recently, a pair of shearling LK Bennett boots I had been obsessing over for my Chicago trip and that were on sale. Grrrrr...Again, it is rare but when this does happen, the foremost thought in your head is "Well, this wouldn't have happened if I'd bought it in store..."

4. Returns and refunds take time

The best e-tailers have their returns process down pat and make it as painless for the customer as possible.  Off the top of my head Matches and Net-a-Porter/Mr Porter/The Outnet all do returns very well. However, it still takes 3-4 days for the package to reach the return destination and then it will be a day until they process the return, then up to 3 days for the refund to appear in your account. Le sigh.

5. Internet shopping changes how you shop in real life.

At it's core, internet shopping is all about maximising information access and convenience. You shop when you want. You have all the information to compare prices at your fingertips.  You can access any number of reviews and feedback about the product and particular stores.  So the role of the sale assistant is essentially reduced to processing the transaction.

In most cases, this is all for the better - I've discussed poor customer service from sales assistants in bricks and mortar retail in previous posts and for those individuals, processing a transaction accurately, quickly and with minimal chit chat is probably the best way for them to earn their wage.  However, some sales assistants ARE knowledgable about their product. Some of them genuinely want to know what you're looking for and tell you what product they have that could best serve your needs.  For these people, internet shopping has the potential to render them obsolete - the customer can get all that info online. They just need someone to swipe the card.


At the end of the day, there are pros and cons to both forms of shopping.  I am undoubtedly a huge internet shopping proponent. But there are also things I greatly value advice from a human being sought face to face before I take the plunge and make my purchase.  I like to think that the advent of internet shopping and the competition between it and bricks and mortar retail effectively push each sphere of retail to improve on the gaps in service quality and performance.  Neither form will ever be the be-all and end-all.  There is absolutely a place for both :) xo

Surviving Chicago in winter - or lumpy dressing for the northern hemisphere :)

Woohoo, it is happening! As I write this, I am sitting in Chicago and I am freezing! It's below zero, quite a lot if you include windchill. I am assuming you get acclimatised to the cold, because a lot of people are walking around just dressed warmly but normally and don't appear to be tearing up because their face is freezing and their ears hurt...me, I am visualising 30 degree heat back home and returning to a land of t shirts all year round.

So this trip is for work, we attend a big radiology congress for my company and it's held in Chicago at the same time every year.  Unfortunately, as much as everyone kept saying 'Have a fun trip!' before I left, in reality, it's a long flight, I am at the conference every day and then we fly straight home on Saturday so it's not really a holiday and there's not much time for sightseeing. However, it's still lovely to go and see a different part of the world, especially as it's preparing for a proper white Christmas.

Getting away from work is always tricky and, despite my best efforts, I always seem to end up packing the night before, which goes like this:

That suitcase is going to look super packed once I finish this...

In the end, I packed:

- lots of sweaters/knits
- three pairs of pants (jeans and my Country Road black technical pants, super warm and comfy)
- tights to go under pants and tank tops to go under sweaters
- a pair of black ankle boots and a pair of black patent pointed toe pumps
- exercise gear including trainers, jammies, a couple of t shirts
- one dress
- one very large black shearling coat

Which looked like this:

I woke up early for the flight out of sheer nerves mostly and tried to settle them with a good healthy proper breakfast (my grandad would be so proud of me)...

Breakfast of jet-setting champions

The challenge in going from southern hemisphere to northern hemisphere at peak seasons is you leave in 30 degrees and arrive in snow. I ended up deciding to carry my shearling on the plane, while wearing a more warm-climate suitable white t-shirt and jeans with my lovely new boots for the flight. I accessorised with a navy Hermes scarf and took my trust Chloe tote:

We boarded Qantas business class headed for LA, drank a celebratory champagne on boarding, had a couple of glasses of red with the splendid lunch they provided, then popped on Bose noise-cancelling headphones and watched a bit of Underworld on my iPad mini before sleeping.

So far, this post makes me look quite the drinker...oh well...

On arrival in LA, we had a 3 hour connection which gave us plenty of time to collect bags, negotiate customs/immigration, drop off bags again and proceed to the AA Admirals Club lounge for a brief recheck of Viber on the free wifi before heading off for the connecting flight to Chicago.  It has to be said, first class American Airlines is NOT the same as Qantas business class.  Not. Even. Close.  But I was happy enough that everything was on time and we flew into Chicago around 3pm on Saturday afternoon.

At this point, we had been awake for around 24 hours so we obviously wasted no time checking into the hotel, showering, unpacking then collapsing into bed.

On Sunday, the weather was comparatively warm and so we ended up walking for about 40 minutes to the McCormack Centre to register for the conference.  I did a fairly extensive tour through the technical exhibits halls before a lecture, then headed back to the hotel to drop off conference papers. Then we headed out to eat this amazingness at Acanto:

On that first day, it was about 11 degrees, so I was comfortable enough to go out without a coat and just a jumper, pants, well layered with tights and singlets etc plus a scarf and gloves:

Since then however, the weather has gotten quite cold and bitter, with the windchill taking temperatures well below freezing. It's been fascinating for me, as a warm-weather resident, to work out how best to put an outfit together driven solely by comfort.  It's also one of those things unique to when you're traveling that you have to get by with very little choice in how you dress on any particular day - you only have one bag, two or three pairs of shoes etc. Mostly my traveling wardrobe seems to have worked out well - I'm a bit lumpier than I usually would like but that's ok as long as I've been warm:

Jumper: Maxmara
Pants: Country Road
Boots: Guiseppe Zanotti
Bag Chloe

Jumper: Maxmara
Jeans: JBrand
Boots: Guiseppe Zanotti
Bag: Chloe

We've mostly been working but there has been time to head out into the cold and take some pretty shots of the city as it comes into the Christmas season:

Biggest coat ever...

I hope everyone is having great weeks, whatever the temperature where you are :) xo

Things I'm looking forward to: December

So this is a tiny bit late because I flew into Chicago late on Saturday and have been working since then and also dealing with dodgy wifi and a fair whack of jet lag but here it IS! December's list of things I'm looking forward to :)

1. Christmas!!!

I'm so excited. I have my Christmas playlist on repeat on my iPhone, my gift list is almost complete and my Christmas party plans are well and truly in hand. It's one of my favourite times of the year, full of sun, beach, prawns and Christmas ham and naps in the air con after far too much food :)

2. Presents

I love giving gifts, especially when they're a surprise. My sister, for example, has no idea about the piece of jewellery my mother and I are getting her. My mum does know about the very special oil painting I'm getting from one of her favourite artists (think it's hard to do surprise 'art', what if the recipient hates it?).

M however is impossible to surprise. He's very picky and hates wasting money so I kind of have to run presents past him before I actually take the plunge. Worst gift-receiving trait ever. However, this year I have managed quite the coup: he is getting a new iPhone 6 with his stamp of approval however I have also managed to pick out a little surprise something for him

I received a 100GBP  gift card from the lovely people at Net-a-Porter to spend at Mr Porter. It came quite out of the blue and I was immediately intrigued. I haven't spent much time on Mr Porter since it launched (M is not exactly a fashion hipster so there's precious little point trying to buy him clothes there).

Given I had 100 pounds to spend, I thought it would be a great opportunity to buy a little surprise gift for M - something that he will enjoy but that I'll also enjoy giving him because he has no idea about it.

I was a little anxious about the exercise, given Net-a-Porter's general luxury price range: would there be anything there that was a suitable 'stocking-filler' type gift?

Honestly ladies, I was very pleasantly surprised. There are obviously some really extravagant items (Dunhill Poker set anyone?) but also some quite fun and relatively inexpensive gift ideas.  I dithered for a while over a bluetooth speaker which you can sync with your phone to play music when you go on picnics...but then we don't picnic #fantasylife #reelitin

In the end, I went with Monopoly and Cluedo vintage box games:

I'm quite excited to bust these out come Christmas Day: the perfect time-passer for the afternoon while older relatives get their nap on...

3. Christmas dinner party

We have a group of friends coming for dinner on Saturday night after I return from Chicago - it's a great opportunity for everyone to catch up and share some Christmas cheer before we all scatter for the break.

I've got the menu mainly sorted: classic French Tarragon roast chickens with roasted carrots and onions and a witloff mustard salad. I'll probably do some smoked salmon and dill creme fraiche canapés to start with, and a cheese board with fruits and Viennese almonds to finish (if it was just M and I, I'd wrap the meal up with a litre of connoisseur ice cream and two spoons but my friends are a bit 'no dessert for me, thanks')

I love the idea of a little Kris Kringle-type gift to hand out randomly to my guests and I found these Luxe City Guides on Net-a-Porter.

4. Making jam

My Christmas gifts this year include amazing homemade raspberry jam courtesy of the domestic goddess herself, Nigella.  I've bought about a thousand jam jars from Wheel & Barrow and am so looking forward to a weekend of jam-making somewhere in the time between now and Christmas...

5. The best vanilla malt milkshake ever - Ribs and Burgers - James St

One thing I am really looking forward to when we get back to Brisbane is a fabulous vanilla
milkshake from Ribs and Burgers on James St...

This beauty awaits me back in sunny Brisbane :)