::i giapponesi

::I woke up at 8am today so I could get into Topshop on Oxford Street before it transforms into a tourist/teenaged girl-crammed nightmare. I already knew what I wanted, so I could get in and out as quickly as possible. I'm not a crowd person.

::I think I've discovered why my right cheek is periodically littered with acne - I have a habit of resting my dirty, Mars Bar (get it! Anita-Marianne-Mars Bar-cu...!!) fingers on it.

I'm also not a big fan of trends. Yeah, that's right - any trends. I follow them, I know what they are, but I'm wary of being the 10th girl on the bus wearing a Ponte shift dress and a camel-hue mac. Visiting Topshop, I was reminded of who they would tell us is the style icon of our generation: La Moss. Disagree. This is what pisses me off about Kate Moss the most - she (and Sienna, to a less successful degree) completely appropriated Anita Pallenberg's style. I hold my tongue when I hear people talking about how stylish Kate is - she isn't, she has ripped off Anita's style with such bold panache that she's managed to convince you (and the world) that her style is completely organic and effortless. Her dresses sell on eBay for exorbitant prices (£50 for a used floral playsuit that's poorly-cut and made?) And by the way, although you may never have heard of Anita Pallenberg, she's way more of a style influence on the high street than any Alexa or Kate. Every season, maybe it's just because I'm admittedly obsessed with Anita (I learned German/Italian/French for her, that's how far this love stretches), I see hints of her style. Look at all the sheer cropped stuff in the shop windows (which, at a size 10 and with a minor wine gut I am very hesitant to wear), look at the floppy hats, even OMBRE HAIR - it's all Anita.

I don't think there's a kimono trend per-se, I'm going to go ahead and group it in the whole 1970s thing going on. And it's the only s/s011 'trend' that I'm willing to partake in. I'm 5'2'' - I wore flared jeans in high school and looked ridiculous. I'm not repeating that debacle. I don't think, mes petites, that short ladies can rock the flared trouser look. They shorten your legs, making peg-type stumpy bow legs like mine look even shorter. I'm really not feeling the High Street this season - thank god, because it means I can spend a fortune making lavish calorie-bomb brownies with £5 organic pecans and Fairtrade chocolate. And then eat it ALL with a butter knife while watching Audrey Hepburn films and cursing that 20 inch waist (uhhh, not mine, hers, obviously).

A face simultaneously expressing both self-loathing and, shamefully and inexplicably, pride!

::france wins

“I happen to know for a fact that she was an American version of me. She was signed by my label in America as, ‘We need to find something controversial and kooky like Lily Allen.’ And then they found her.” - Lily Allen on Katy Perry

::As part of my job, I read style and fashion magazines and analyze press coverage for big fashion companies. So invariably I'm up to date on all the latest celeb gossip (I know far too much about Jordan to admit) - not because I want to be, but because it's a by-product of reading about popular culture from 7am to 3pm. To counter this, in my spare time I read Dostoyevsky and Karl Popper and do Italian and French verb conjugation drills, but that's another story.

I am inundated with news about Katy Perry on a daily basis. Various vacuous quotes fill my head, thanks to Mrs Brand. I know that she has a cat called Kitty Purry. Do I want to know this? You can guess my answer. Don't even get me started on her Purr perfume. Invariably, I have developed a deep hostility towards Katy with her immaculately coiffured hair, double sets of false eyelashes (seriously Katy - false lower lashes too?), annoyingly horsey and overconfident voice, and general smugness. She's up there with Angelina in the smugness stakes.

Who I am not inundated with quotes and pictures of, is the divine Eva Green. Look at these two pictures! Look at the class and sophistication she possesses, the kooky-in-a-good way dress sense (take note, KP), the ability to hide her substantial bosom behind layers of chiffon rather than get them out at any chance in trashy sequined numbers. Note the absence of jowly laugh lines, which Katy can't hide with her primer/concealer/foundation/more concealer/highlighter combo. Note the lack of transvestite eyebrows and blush.

Katy looks like a discount, Barbie doll, Americanized version of the glowing, radiant and effortlessly beautiful Eva. If I have to read one more time about how happy she is with Russell, I will eschew my work forever and retreat to a monastery in Siberia with a rucksack full of Russian classics, posters of Isabelle Adjani and my pride. Good choice of a wife, Russell Brand - you're known for your crassness and being a purveyor of bad taste - thank the heavens you've found someone who shares those exact values. I can't wait till the pages of Hello and (probably) Grazia are filled with images of your brood and quotes from Katy about diet plans, collapsed sex organs and Jesus or Buddha or whatever. Only images of the celestial Eva Green provide me with some relief, allowing me to slip into reveries of chain smoking at a cafe on the Seine, whiffs of Dior Poison (possibly), and the most perfect blue eyes I've ever seen. Then I turn the page of Hello! at my desk at work, and my dream comes crashing down, when I see pictures like this -

You're not Lucille Ball, but you could pass for Kathy Griffin....?

::designersz

::Although it doesn't help me much in my bid to acquire the poor girl's equivalent of Erin Wasson's wardrobe, I have to confess my love for Marni. And The Outnet. When I get a new job, I am buying a Marni dress. I don't care if it means I have to eat tomato soup and generic veg curry for 4 weeks - my wardrobe will have in its possession a dress so beautiful, it puts its Topshop and Zara neighbours to shame. Remember the scene from Pulp Fiction with the briefcase? That same celestial, radiant light, 200000kw light will engulf my faux-French chateau-style Ikea wardrobe, and I will be the proud owner of my first designer item.

Thus far, the High Street has been the sordid, sweat-shop-shame supplier of my outfits (is Marni made in sweat shops? Well, I can forgive them...). But more and more of late, as I painfully turn over the price tags of polyester camisoles in Urban Outfitters (£60?) and trendy camel-hue princess cut coats in Topshop (£130? Could I wear it next season when camel is out, and the snickering girls in Shoreditch wonder how someone can be so brazen as to wear one of last season's hero pieces?), more and more I am considering investing in designer items that don't have a seasonal life span, but cost a fortune.

This poses a few problems. Well, it poses one problem, the most obvious problem. I can't afford to buy £600 dresses every few weeks on my salary. I can barely afford to buy a half-price grey maxi dress from Miss Selfridge that no one wanted. So I gotta wait until I get a gig that permits such extravagances. In the meantime I can contemplate the closets of Alexa (the only thing I'm jealous of concerning good old overexposed AC is her wardrobe) Sasha Pivovarova, and Erin Wasson.

::nina ballerina

::I saw Black Swan last week and really enjoyed it. I'm a big fan of Japanese anime and knew that Darren Aronofsky had purchased the rights to Perfect Blue (for the bathtub scene in Requiem for a Dream), so I was half expecting a lot of the twists and turns. For those that don't know, Perfect Blue tells the story of a young pop singer being stalked by a rabid fan - turns out the stalker is actually her manager, who has a desire to actually become the pop singer. Cue paranoia,  identity crises, mania - you can see where Aronofsky borrowed a lot from Perfect Blue.

The dancing shots were amazing, as were the multiple close-ups of Portman's exquisite face. I was actually far more impressed with Mila Kunis and her admirably casual approach to ruthless ambition. I know Portman was playing the role of diminutive, quiet little girl, but come on - she's been playing that role for about 15 years now and while her performance is amazing, it's not like she didn't have any practice. On Charlie Rose she even acknowledges that director Mike Nicholls sent her to a voice coach to get rid of her ''little girl voice''. (Is it also wrong to say that Portman was far more beautiful and sexy in Leon than in any subsequent film she's made?..... Can I say that?). The costumes were perfect, but I'm very put off by the big stink that Rodarte have caused (see this interview with Amy Westcott,
http://clothesonfilm.com/black-swan-amy-westcott-interview/18997/)

Throughout Black Swan, I was reminded of Nick Roeg's Performance. The mirror play, swapping of identities, except in Performance the crisis occurs between two men. It was the reason I learned how to use a camera, Performance. It's also Rachel Weisz's favorite film, and I wouldn't have minded seeing her in Winona Ryder's role in Black Swan...

The lead character in Perfect Blue is an unstable popstar called Mima slowly losing her mind. Aronofsky ain't gonna be winning for best original script.

Rachel Weisz in Vogue UK April 2006: Roeg-inspired, Bay Garnett-styled shoot (Garnett being chummy with Ms. Pallenberg)