The Womens Room

We love: the Marmite pop up store

The Womens Room — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:21:00 +0000

At the bottom of Regent Street, close to Piccadilly Circus, there is a tiny pop up store dedicated entirely to Marmite. We both love (Amanda) and hate (Jane) Marmite here at The Women's Room, so we'll be sticking labels on both sides of the wall display set up in the store to get customers engaged in the debate.

We've been sending you to Regent Street to see COS and Anthropologie, so until Christmas, you can now add the Marmite pop up to the list. As well as stocking up on well, Marmite, there's a tea and toast bar upstairs to revive your flagging spirits after too much shopping.

Marmite pop up on Facebook 82 Regent Street, close to Piccadilly Circus.

The rise of the lipstick entrepreneurs

The Womens Room — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:30:00 +0000

According to to an article in the FT last week, the recession is accelerating the growth of a new generation of "lipstick entrepreneurs", who will reshape society and change the way people work. The report from the Future Laboratory predicts that number of female enterprises could double over the next 10 years, taking the number of self employed women running businesses to more than 2m.

They site women like Natalie Massenet of Net-a-Porter, Chrissie Rucker of The White Company and Laura Tenison of JoJo Mamon Bébé as role models, and forecast that the number of female Chief Executives at FTSE companies will increase from just five in 2008 to more than 50 in the next decade.

The report thinks the women may have opted out of a successful career to strike out on their own, stepped up to protect their family's finances, run a business in addition to a full-time job, worked from home to juggle career and family, or turned a hobby into a business. They range from self-employed school leavers to some who are beyond retirement age.

We totally agree with this thinking and have had many discussions about how, especially when you get to a certain age, running your own business must surely be the most satisfying way to earn a living. Whether it's a very simple idea that stays small and easy to manage, or a big idea that will grow and grow, the important thing is, it's yours. The chance to utilise your skills, try something new and do it on your own terms seems like a very tempting idea.

But why is it that more women don't do it? We have great ideas, an amazing ability to multi task, are not afraid of hard work and are generally good at managing people. But we can always find a reason 'not to.' Is it an essentially female characteristic that stops us? Lack of confidence, a feeling that we are somehow not good enough, or if we are mothers, do we think we would have to sacrifice family time for long hours in the office? It's probably all of the above and more, but somehow as you get older those things seem to matter less and less. We feel more ready to take risks and embrace new challenges. We are less concerned with what others think and more confident in our abilities. And if our children are growing up and leaving home, we are more than ready to get back to work and prove ourselves, while our partners are desperate to retire and take up golf!!

We have the experience and the wisdom (hopefully), the enthusiasm and the ideas, so perhaps its time to shake off that uncertainty, be confident and think like a man.

BTW, just like we don't like pink laptops, we don't like the term "lipstick entrepreneurs." Why cant we just entrepreneurs?

Hanging out with the girls at Tobias and the Angel

The Womens Room — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:26:00 +0000

A selection of the Christmas fairies from Tobias and the Angel

A few years ago I spent a rediculous amount of money on a hand made Christmas fairy to hang on our tree. I got it from Tobias and The Angel in Barnes, Anyone who has been to Angel Hughes's shop during her Christmas build up will know just what an exciting experience it can be for first time visitors. Every year the shop closes for three days in order to transform itself into a Christmas wonderland, full of covetable gifts, heavenly smelling hyacinth bowls and a wonderful selection of hand made decorations for the Annual Christmas Show.

The first time I tried to buy a Christmas fairy, some years ago now, I was too late, they had sold out in under three hours, Angel had only made a few and was (I think) taken aback at the speed with which they sold, considering the price. The next year I was better prepared and so was Angel, she had made more of them and I was there at bang on opening time, although she only makes 18 or so each year, each one comes with a birth date tag.

Since then our fairy has 'hung out' very beautifully, earning her keep, turning an ordinary tree into a Christmas spectacular. She is exquistely made, by Angel and her British based sewing team and has lovely hair, a hand drawn face and rather fetching knickers that she flashes from under her copious lace edged net petticoats if it's a tall-tree year. She wields a fierce looking star wand as she directs the holiday festivities from her elevated perch.

Since the first of the Christmas Shows, Angel has added whole selection of girls to the fairy Christmas portfolio, there are blondes, brunettes, red heads, crazy-wild looking ones and neatly prim and proper ones. There are now also angels in the range as well as an assortment of lovely tree and home decorations You can order online, although why you'd want to do that rather than turning up on November 18th (from 11.30 till 9.00pm on the first day) is beyond me, as the shop is wonderful, I'd quite like to move in.

The Annual Christmas Show, which also includes The Dining Room Shop and Knots Elementals beauty products, will take place from November 18th until Christmas, at 62 White Hart Lane, SW13 OPZ.

ps, you want to know how much the fairies are? I can't possibly admit to it on the blog as middleagedad may read it and pass out, so maybe take a look at Angel's website.

Christmas wish list: Rare Bird of Fashion

The Womens Room — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:30:00 +0000

Iris Apfel has long been one of the Womens Room favourite Style Icons. We are fascinated by her eccentric style, amazing use of colour and complete refusal to conform and dress like an old lady (she's 88).

An exhibition dedicated to her Style is currently on in Salem MA at the Peabody Essex Museum and runs until February 2010. They credit Iris with being the first women to turn jeans into a fashion item, when in the 1940's she hounded the owner of her local Army and Navy store, until he ordered her a pair of boy sized jeans. Until then, only lumberjacks and field hands had worn them, but she wore hers with a turban and hoop earrings! The exhibition lists the essential elements of style according to Iris Apfel:

Never take yourself or and outfit too seriously
Visit the animal kingdom
Consider the clergy
Travel widely
Go high and low
Don't fret about your age
Don't be afraid to stop traffic

Eric Bowman's book Rare Bird of Fashion was published in 2007 and is a tribute to the personal style of Apfel over the last 40 years. Bowman styled over 90 outfits on mannequins, using the colours, textures and patterns loved by Iris.
A true inspiration and a great present for a stylish friend or relative.

Middleagemum.com: why no one cooks quince any more

The Womens Room — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 04:56:00 +0000

Quince, best left in a good looking pile rather than cooked

I have acquired some odd habits picked up over the years, it's hard not to have, right? when you get to be over 40? One of these odd habits is buying fruit and vegetables JUST TO LOOK AT, not to eat or cook, but just to put on the table and admire. I even have a special table in the kitchen to put the displays on, where they achieve a magazine-shoot-status of loveliness for a while, sitting enticingly in wooden bowls or ceramic dishes all colourfully piled up, expecting, no doubt, as fruit and veg surely must, to be turned into supper any time soon.

I find it almost impossible to walk passed our greengrocer without falling for some seductive pile of seasonal produce. The worst place is markets, particularly Portobello market on a Friday, I get totally caught up in the whole affair, buying stuff entirely for the way it looks.

This week it was quince, a hilly pile of downy yellow fruit that gave off aromatic wafts of perfume everytime they got nudged. Mostly these piles of organic architectural wonder are ignored by the family, who think that I am a bonkers frustrated shopkeeper with all my pointless displays, so accept what ever is on show that week with blind indifference. Usually the piles rot, or I get bored with them and they end up on one of my compost heaps.

Obviously this is a terrible waste of money, times, effort on behalf of the grower and undoubtably a climate killer too, I am always beating myself up about it. This week youngest teenageson commented. "What are those?' pointing at the quince. "Why aren't we going to eat them? They look like apples, can you make a crumble?" So I made myself feel very much better by deciding to NOT WASTE FOOD and cooked the quince.

Have you ever wondered why we don't see quince in Asda? Or even Tesco last time I looked? Here's why. They take three HOURS to get even slightly soft in the oven, and despite turning the most beautiful shade of ruby red, taste absolutely horrid. Yes I know you can make quince cheese, but that's pretty odd too. And nothing like cheese.

So sometimes, despite everything we are taught and against all our better judgement, some things are just best admired for the way they look and a more meaningful relationship is best avoided.

We love: a period drama

The Womens Room — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 06:30:00 +0000

We are big fans of period dramas and think there really is nothing better than the combination of drama, romance and beautiful period costumes. Jane Campions new film Bright Star, opens this weekend, stars Abbie Cornish and Ben Wishaw and tells the true story of the poet John Keats and his first love Fanny Brawne.

There is also an exhibition featuring the films stunning costumes, by designer Janet Patterson, at Keats House in Hampstead, North London, which runs until November the 22nd. We can feel a Bonnet moment coming on!

Shopping with experts: knitted dresses

The Womens Room — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:03:00 +0000

Tommy Hilfiger Poppy knit dress, 100% cashmere, £202

As soon as it starts to get colder, I want to wear knits. I stop with the crisp cotton shirts and the acetate lined dresses and want to swaddle in warm woolly comfort. A knitted dress is the ultimate in easy dressing, warm and stupidly simple to wear PLUS you get to wear thick tights. What's not to love?

Luckily for us, knitted dresses are having a moment, I have it on the coolest and best-connected of advice, oh yes. In the Guardian yesterday, fashion editor Jess Cartner-Morley wrote about how cool jogging bottoms now are (stick with me) and explained that she had followed the advice of Fiona Collins, PR to the Tommy Hilfiger brand, who manages to make everything she wears look good. Well by fabulous coincidence as part of the day job I was meeting with the lovely Ms Collins that very morning. So I made a note of what she was wearing, and guess what? Yep, it was a knitted dress.

It was the one above in fact, which I checked out in the store after our meeting. It is a little more fitted than your average knitted dress and is made slightly edgier with the chunky zip details, Fiona had her zipped neckline worn undone and it looked sexy - as far as a knit dress can. It's also very snuggly being cashmere and has a pretty cuffed full sleeve.

We've also seen good ones in John Smedley and some very well priced ones in Uniqlo, Topshop and (of course) Cos, so keep a look out while they are hot, it's worth investing in a good one because they are timeless.

There is a problem with knitted dresses, they can be very stodgy if done wrong on our age group, so here are our tips

Wear them to the knee or shorter, any longer and you're in frumpsville.

Don't wear them tight, ever. If you want to add a bit of shape then wear a belt that sits on the hips, but a bit of gentle volume is really liberating.

Add colour. You will almost definately end up buying either black, navy or grey this year, so get a little interest in through coloured tights, big bold jewels or scarves (those lovely bright M&S cashmere jersey ones are good for adding shots of bold fuchsia and colbalt.

Buy wool or cashmere, nothing nastier than a soggy acrylic baggy bottom imprint. Natural fibres spring back into shape, acrylic doesn't.

Wear a petticoat underneath, everything will look sleeker.

Wear staggeringly high, jewel encrusted heels, preferably with a platform.......nah, only joking, does that sound like us? Knee high flat boots all the way, or you could wear ankle boots as this is a great year for them.

Knitted dresses have a tendency to pill, so buy one of John Lewis's magical fluff removers, I have one and it works like magic

Middleagedmum.com: you're going to make it after all

The Womens Room — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:30:00 +0000

Teen daughter spent a great deal of half term sitting on the sofa watching back to back episodes of Friends. One day instead of moaning at her to go out and do something, I rather decadently took half and hour out of my day to watch an episode with her.

Later in the day walking round the supermarket we chatted about the usual stuff, GCSE's, potential careers etc and as she talked me through who she thought she might share a flat with, what it would look like and what job she would be doing, I was instantly transported by to my own 13 year old self and how the long, sometimes boring days of the holidays were spent planning my future and imagining how exciting my life was going to be. Dreaming of the future takes up a lot of time when you're a teenage girl (I think boys do it too, but it involves fast machines and sporting triumphs, so not the same) and nothing sums up that feeling more for me, than watching the opening sequence of the Mary Tyler Moore show. My once a week insight into Mary Richard's life in Minneapolis, the trials and tribulations of sharing a flat with Rhoda (how much did we love Rhoda's mum, Ida) and negotiating her way through her first job in the TV station newsroom, were my first taste of another world. A world of independence and exciting opportunities, new friends, boyfriends and a potential career.
Maybe those episodes of Friends provide that for todays teenage girls and perhaps I'll stop nagging, as it's good to dream.

We love: India's Posterous

The Womens Room — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:44:00 +0000

Doesn't this picture make you want to drop everything and make a cake? India Knight is one of our favourite journos and we were thrilled to discover that she has started a blog called India's Posturous. This cake is on her new blog, India found it on the very clever Whatever blog, which was also featured on the Urban Outfitters blog, which goes to show just how quickly cooking a colourful cake at home for the kids can cause a global baking pandemic.

There's a lot of good stuff on India's Posturous and she's only just begun so we'll be putting her on our right hand column list of great blogs to follow. She also wrote a good article on women talking through blogs in this weekend's Sunday Times magazine (without once mentioning her own, which we thought was incredibly non-show-off-ish of her, we'd have had ours in the first para), where she lists a few more wordy blogs to follow.

Ms Knight states that blogs are a perfect medium for women who are at home with children, often feeling isolated due to their circumstance, to express themselves. There are some great writers emerging from the blogosphere who perfectly distill domestic dullness into something hilarious and entertaining. Life, particularly with children, is not pretty and is rarely as it is displayed in magazines. Blogs, with their personal, non edited, non advertising-influenced, non book deal compromised writing tell it as it is, and makes us screech with laughter. Our favourite of India's list has to be Belgian Waffle.

New New Yorker: Take a walk on the wild side

The Womens Room — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:30:00 +0000

I’ve been meeting lots of aging New Yorkers recently and discovering a very cool and stylish maturing world here in the city of shows, to quote my darling Lou Reed, himself a sexagenerian. That sounds like I’ve met him doesn’t it? I haven’t.

Anyway, the elderly are cool in NYC. They are treated with respect in shops, cafes etc and many of them display an eccentricity I’m finding highly admirable. They are loud, feisty and demanding, cracking jokes and not taking any nonsense from surly sales assistants, bus drivers etc. Both sexes walk with pride even if it includes a stick or a stoop and all the ladies I see wear at least bright coloured lipstick, with many going all the way make-up wise. Instead of the uniform blue rinses of the English provinces you find all kinds of wild hairstyles on the average over 65-er. Spikey Jonny Rotten crops and silver bobs abound – a look I’ll be going for one day God willing my hair clings on that long. A neighbour of mine has just had her long grey locks chopped into a very funky spiky short cut and died a great shade of aubergine. A retired teacher, she told me when I admired her new look “Thanks! I love it. I’d been wearing my hair in that long, straight style since Woodstock. I saw the movie and thought, I need to change my hair!!”

Our neighbourhood is very Jewish and wigs abound among the more orthodox ladies. This is a licence for pure rock n roll indulgence on the part of many of them. I am always seeing 70 plus-ers with big luscious Bond Girl hair or Marie-Antoinette style pile-ups in vivid red or mahogany. New York ladies love a hat, particularly crochet berets, felt jobs with brims or big fur muff-lookers. No sad woolly pull-ons for them. All kinds of funky eyewear are groovy too, with designs from the 60s and 70s very popular. Funky layered jumpers, leggings and shawls over furry ankle boots or little waterproof bootees are now coming out thanks to the colder weather. Not to mention astrakahn and fake fur coats and lots of bright coloured tweed overcoats and capes from the first time they were fashionable.

The lesson for me is to hang on to all my clothes. I am going to stash them all in vacuum air-sucked out packing bags for eternity. If we end up staying here till old age I will look forward to dying my hair purple/white, getting out all my old gear and strutting about while the young gaze admiringly and hold open doors as I pass.