I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away...

[I'm seeing her live next month - excitement!!]

Love, rhythm and rhyme and harmony xx

I've seen love go by my door, it's never been this close before...

...Never been so easy, or so slow.
Been shooting in the dark too long,
When something’s not right, it’s wrong,
You're gonna make me lonesome when you go.

Dragon clouds so high above
I’ve only known careless love,
It’s always hit me from below.
This time around it’s more correct
Right on target, so direct,
You're gonna make me lonesome when you go.

Purple clover, Queen Anne’s lace,
Crimson hair across your face,
You could make me cry if you don’t know.
Can’t remember what I was thinkin’ of
You might be spoilin’ me with too much love,
You're gonna make me lonesome when you go.

Flowers on the hillside, bloomin’ crazy,
Crickets talkin’ back and forth in rhyme,
Blue river runnin’ slow and lazy,
I could stay with you forever, and never realize the time.

Situations have ended sad,
Relationships have all been bad.
Mine’ve been like Verlaine’s and Rimbaud.
But there’s no way I can compare
All those scenes to this affair,
You're gonna make me lonesome when you go.

Yer gonna make me wonder what I’m doin’,
Stayin’ far behind without you.
Yer gonna make me wonder what I’m sayin’,
Yer gonna make me give myself a good talkin’ to.

I’ll look for you in old Honolulu,
San Francisco, Ashtabula,
You're gonna have to leave me now, I know.
But I’ll see you in the sky above,
In the tall grass, in the ones I love,
You're gonna make me lonesome when you go.

Love, Bob Dylan and Michelle Williams playing Marilyn Monroe in a biopic! xx

''To give style'' to one's character -- a great and rare art!

-Grazie mille for this gorgeous award, Tuesdai Noelle! Funnily enough, it comes at a time when I was lazily pondering why I started writing Sparkles and Crumbs - it actually began as just an online extension of a big 'style scrapbook' I used to keep, collaging any magazine cuttings or print-offs from the internet which made me want to dress up and dance down the street in an old 1950s musical.

Since then - after almost two years [lordy!] - it's become much more a hodgepodge of musings, quotes, pretty pictures, songs, movie clips, and - most of the time - feelings. But then, where else does real style come from but that big maelstrom of ideas and emotions inside us? As Tuesdai Noelle herself says, "Fashion expression should speak; volume, LIFE, and character!"

"Oh, never mind the fashion. When one has a style of one's own, it is always twenty times better."
-Margaret Oliphant

I think this is who I am now, and who I am dressing to be:

[And girls do, too.]

"These girls camp out in their backyards for fun, they light candles everywhere, and if you visit them at home they usually have all sorts of animals. Their wardrobes are filled with silk robes and bows and hats, they drink tall glasses of milk and snack on chocolate while they watch the sun rise. They are the kind of girls who ride bikes through the city to the cinema that plays old movies in the middle of the day. They watch "Breakfast at Tiffany's..."

~

What inspires how you dress?

Old musicals with Gene Kelly or Marilyn Monroe. Lauren Willig's "The Secret History of the Pink Carnation." AA Milne's "Once on a Time." Champagne tea at the Ritz. Pushing Daisies. Fifties diners. Baked goods. Redwall hares. Christian Loubourins. Dorothy from "Cider with Rosie." Cruising along the Italian coast or through the centre of Rome on the back of a moped with my arms around a handsome driver.

Must head to Debenham's before I leave Cambridge and get something from Henry Holland's new line...

[Hats worn by Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes]

Marilyn Monroe will always be my greatest style heroine for all time...

...in her own immortal words, "I don't want to make money. I just want to be wonderful."

"Style is what unites memory or recollection, ideology, sentiment, nostalgia, presentiment, to the way we express all that. It's not what we say but how we say it that matters.”
-Federico Fellini

Love, sequins and sewing machines xx

“You’re laughing now; but when you wrote me you were unhappy,” he said...

“Yes.” She paused. “But I can’t feel unhappy when you’re here.”
“I shan’t be here long,” he rejoined…
“No; I know. But I’m improvident: I live in the moment when I’m happy.”

-Edith Wharton, 'The Age of Innocence'

Love, May Welland and the Countess Olenska xx

I want to make a ray of sunshine, and never leave home

~






Come on in
Did you have a hard time sleeping?

'Cause the heavy moon was keeping
Me awake, and all I know is
I'm just glad to see you again

See my love
Like a lost balloon
Rising up through the afternoon
And then you appeared...

-Norah Jones, 'Those Sweet Words'

It was all clear blue sky all the way - as I was sure our life would be. I couldn’t forget Bogie’s tears. Every time I looked at him I welled up. How had I lived before him? I couldn’t remember my life before him - it all ran together, like watercolors. It seemed that everything that had ever happened to me had led to this day with him. I don’t know whether it was his particular personality, his strength and purity of thought, or whether all brides feel that way. Probably a combination. I had no doubt that this happiness would last forever. I could not imagine living a minute without him. From now on I would not have to - we were together now, like the man said, “till death do you part.”

- Lauren Bacall on her wedding to Humphrey Bogart, May 1945.

This is the first day of my life
I swear I was born right in the doorway
I went out in the rain, suddenly everything changed
They're spreading blankets on the beach

Yours was the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you
Now I don’t know where I am, I don’t know where I’ve been, but I
Know where I want to go...

This is the first day of my life
I’m glad I didn’t die before I met you
But now I don’t care, I could go anywhere with you
And I’d probably be happy...

-Bright Eyes, 'The First Day of My Life'

“An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet,
regardless of time, place, or circumstance.
The thread may stretch or tangle,
but it will never break.”

-Ancient Chinese belief

Love, balloons and candy floss xx