My (Almost) Glamorous London Life (and Shoes!)

Let's be honest - the glamorous life in London I was fantasizing about hasn’t really gotten off the ground yet. The reality looks more like this: I moved in to an apartment with fabulous aforementioned flat mates and then moved out because it was too expensive and the neighborhood sketched me out. Now I have a room mate (like actually a person I share a room with) which is some thing I didn’t think I would have again post college. She is really cool and makes a terrific shopping buddy for which I'm grateful. We already have Thanksgiving plans we're really psyched for! The fact that we live in an old building which has a mice problem – and I thought earlier this week I might have bed bugs!!! (EW!) -not as cool. Also our microwave doesn’t turn off properly anymore and we’re concerned about it blowing up one day, and we don’t have an oven and we have to go to the laundry mat to do laundry…also not so great. But these are things that I am not dwelling on. (Well --- there may have been some dwelling after we saw a mouse in our room but that’s beside the point.) The light at the end of this paragraph is that I have had some glamorous, “I’m in London!” moments. Mostly they have to do with shopping…

Anyone who’s ever shopped with me knows that it isn’t something I do till I drop…it is something I do until my credit card gets rejected. (Don’t worry Mom and Dad – that hasn’t happened.) But even being aware of the credit crunch hasn’t stopped me from finding some really unbeatable bargains and some absolute must haves.

Exploring markets has become one of my favorite ways to spend a weekend. When the weather is nice I love to wander down Portobello Road where you can buy kitschy antiques (the nice stuff is put away by 8 or 9ish; if you want quality it means a really early morning…I haven’t been able to fit that in to my “how to spend a Saturday” equation yet), tacky souvenirs, vintage clothes and lunch all in one place. If you breeze by the entire touristy section, as I did on my first visit (I was being shown Portobello Market by a London native), then you come to what my guide refers to as “the tatty section.” This part looks like any American neighbor yard sale. Old electronics, little old ladies selling lingerie that I hope know one ever buys, and objects that have obviously been residing in people's attics abound. But like any yard sale, there can be true treasures hidden among all that tat. So far the Portobello Best Buy has been an absolutely phenomenal pair of vintage ‘80s heels that I found on a sheet in the street with a lot of ugly canvas sneakers that I would never look twice at. But these shoes were the gemstones among gravel. And amazingly they were my size. When I looked up inquisitvely, the guy manning the plot said,

“Two quid love.”

Sold!

I found another great pair of shoes at a charity shop (aka thrift store) on Kensington High Street. I made out like a fashion intern let loose in the sample room at this place…I bought a dress, a belt, and shoes for 30ish pounds. Dress and belt are both great but the shoes were the buy of the day on that particular shopping extravaganza. Words can’t possibly do these shoes justice so I’ll let speak for themselves…

If you ever come to London and have a burning desire to buy some punky, Goth flavored clothing and/or accessories then check out the Camden town markets for band t-shirts and combat boots galore. I browsed through these stalls but really enjoyed looking at the vintage clothes and jewelry stands. My visit to the markets wasn’t long enough…there are many more scarves to look through and brooches to consider buying. But even a short stay yielded a Camden Best Buy: a short ‘n’ sweet vintage (60s or 70s) grass green dress for 15 quid. It was in the bag and paid for before I even thought about trying it on. I had such a good feeling about it when I saw it I just assumed it would fit. No worries - once I got home and modeled it for my room mate I found out I was right!

So my shopping life is nearly as glamorous as I could wish it to be. I’m still lusting after the designer dresses at Harrod’s and the 85 pound (that like over one hundred dollars for those of you not keeping up with the conversion rates) scarves at Liberty’s but I think I’ve still done okay. (I'm already worried about how all of this stuff is going to get back to the states!)

In fact, a few things have worked out better than I could have imagined them. Picture this: A party attended by models, fashion designers who’ve clothed the likes of Courtney Love and Paris Hilton, and actresses who are mentioned almost daily in the London commuter papers. There is free champagne pouring almost everywhere you look, a VIP entrance, and wait staff in tails carrying trays of hors d’oeuvres of very fancy looking food that you know is going to have an unpronounceable name. Sound too good to be true?

Not when you’ve made friends with one of the guys helping do display installations it’s not!

Here’s how I attended an On/Off (fashion production company) London Week Fashion Party at the Royal Academy of Art (which is almost cool enough to make up for the fact my building has mice!):

I’ve made friends with a British guy (the same who taught me the word knackered) who is in product design. He makes lighting displays, furniture – that kind of thing. For fashion week he was asked to build a wall of ipods. Since I spent a Saturday afternoon in his workshop helping him glue this thing together and a Sunday afternoon keeping him company/“helping” while he installed it I guess he felt obligated to take me along for some kind of fashion week event. Or maybe that had something to do with a conversation that went something like this:

Me: So since I helped you build this thing and helped you carry it up and down stairs are you going to give me tickets to a fashion week show?

Michael: Uh…the shows all happen during the day. I didn’t think you would want to take off work. Want to go to a party instead?

Let’s recap:

Do I want to go to a London Fashion Week Party?

(Is this a trick question?)

So on a much anticipated Monday evening I rushed to finish everything the lawyers needed me to do at work (aka print their spreadsheets and put stamps on envelopes), change in to a fashion week party ensemble (super cute gray knit dress with waist clinching black belt, black stockings with sexy details -including bows!- down the back, a pair of swingy silver earrings, pinned my hair up in twists and coils, and swapped my boots for taxi cab yellow heels…the same pair I bought with the former flat mates after we drank too much wine at dinner.I was neither over-dressed, nor the most dressed up there. There was everything things from a cheetah print mumu style dress (on a drag queen) to skinny jeans with leather jackets and head bands with bows so big they looked like Mickey Mouse Club accessories.

I spent the evening in competition with my date to see who could drink the most free champagne (he won – but I was drunker), chatting up gay designers and their husbands, admiring how hot the drag queen’s shoes were, and just generally feeling like the gorgeous, has-great-plans-every-night girl that every girl wants to be. Oh and I got free bags!

The next day reading the commuter paper on the Tube home and thinking for the umpteenth time that if I ever went back to one of these things then maybe I wouldn’t drink quite so much champagne I read that Kelly Brook (English model, singer, and actress), had been photographed at the On/Off party at the Royal Academy.

Fashion Week Parties definitely fit with my fantasy London life. :)