It did seem a bit bizarre to go all the way to Heathrow when I wasn’t going on holiday just to get a facial. But it was worth it, in the end.

Getting there was a pain, it’s just further than you think it is, and the Piccadilly line takes ages. I had hoped to arrive early enough to enjoy the sauna facilities, meaning I was relaxed and detoxified for my treatment. Instead I was 15 minutes late, stressed and lost. The Sofitel Hotel is easily accessible from the Piccadilly line at terminal five – but it’s a long, slightly lonely walk down some creepy corridors.

The spa is situated in the basement of the hotel, and the heavy wood décor and lack of windows make it very claustrophobic. Maybe it’s just me, but spas make me think of green fields, and dew, and sunshine and fresh air – there was none of this to be seen. It was also deathly quiet. I could well have been the only person there. 

Once I’d filled in a fairly involved questionnaire about my age, health, favourite foods, hopes and dreams etc, I was escorted by my very nice therapist into the treatment room. More low lighting and heavy wood, but it was spacious, luxurious and had a very exclusive feel to it. 

The preliminary consultation with my therapist was a bit weird – I was asked to sit in a low-slung armchair with my feet up, while she stood above me, explaining in far too much detail what she was going to do, then doing it, and then telling me what she’d done. The concept was nice, and the entire thing was designed to ensure that she gave me the right treatment, but it just could have been done in a more relaxed way than her standing over me, repeating things in a rather robotic manner. I just felt a bit uncomfortable.

That said, the rest of the experience was amazing. I had a Skin Brightener Facial – just the thing when you’re feeling worn out and slightly ‘wonky’ in the run up to Christmas. It was a freezing day and as I was left alone to whip off my clothes I wondered whether I’d get cold, but climbing onto the heated treatment table it suddenly became clear that luxury was the order of the day.

Soft towels, delicious smelling cleansers and body oils, relaxing eye masks and the most sublime head and neck massage followed. It was informative too – my therapist spent time looking at my skin under a special lamp, identifying problem areas, adjusting the treatment accordingly and all the time explaining what she was doing. It felt totally bespoke, angled towards what I needed and what my skin would benefit from most.

There was no patronising overtone when they discovered my current facial routine is to stumble bleary eyed into the bathroom, throw water at myself, hunt for some form of soap and then stumble back to the bedroom. And the obligatory product sell at the end, although rather long winded, was clear and precise and targeted towards what I needed the most. 

At £80 a pop these aren’t cheap facials, but they’re definitely value for money. I never once felt rushed, or processed. My skin looks and feels amazing and a week on it is still clear what good it’s done. I’ve appreciated the information about things I can do to help my skin, and the reasonably priced cleanser I bought is working wonders. If you’re flying from Heathrow this Christmas and have time, I’d definitely recommend saving your pennies and indulging in a relaxing Espa treatment. A perfect way to start a winter break.

The Spa
Sofitel London Heathrow
Terminal 5
London Heathrow Airport
TW6 2GD
 
Monday - Friday:  9am – 9pm
Saturday: 9am – 8pm
Sunday: 9am – 6pm
 
For reservations please contact the Spa Manager Carly Griffin on 0208 757 7742 or email H6214-TH@accor.com

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

No related posts.

A few years ago, Sofia Coppola gave us Marie Antoinette. She gave us lavish dresses, exquisite delicacies, frivolous parties, gorgeous sunsets and absurd, gauche hairstyles. The curtain fell with the guillotine, and that was the end of that. Sharon Kivland picks up where Coppola left off, in a tiny gallery tucked away behind the Tate Britain, to tell us the rest of the story.

A Wind of Revolution Blows is a strange, disjointed sort of exhibit. Here you’ll find carefully printed and framed excerpts from French texts, embroidered aprons and doctored postcards, all brought together by two concurrent themes: Women and Revolution.

At first glance, the artworks are a nostalgic nod to femininity in the past. Kivland recreates ink and watercolour drawings from an 1848 fashion magazine; it’s all petticoats and bonnets and healthy blush on plump cheeks (how very different to the lanky, tanned models of today!). Elegant gloves are carefully arranged under a glass case.

But look a little closer and the metaphorical rose is in reality made of metaphorical stone, the foundations of the class revolution. The petticoats, they’re from the same year as the first publication of the Communist Manifesto. The pretty pastel gloves, they scream in embroidered defiance: liberté, fraternité, egalité. A black velvet pair solemnly concludes: ou la mort. This is an exhibition to make us question the distinction between conformity and rebellion, femininity and feminism.

You need to pick up a flyer at the door. Kivland makes strong, anthropological statements with her work; unfortunately, they are concealed under a layer of focused historical study and foreign language. A silver necklace carefully nested in a velvet box appears out of place and redundant, until the accompanying description explains that the word pétroleuse means both ‘cock-tease’ and ‘a woman who voices her political opinions too vehemently’. If you went to university, you’ll remember your favourite lecturer, the one who interspersed a boring stream of facts with anecdotes and stories. Kivland is that lecturer, reaching out through the medium of art and metaphor.

Academics who turn their attention to women in society tend to go down one of the two available routes: either the observational, matter-of-fact approach, or the bra-burning, how-could-you approach. Kivland is probably the only person in the world who has achieved a happy middle, rejecting neither female beauty, nor female strength.

Despite this, there is a certain sadness in her work. A large tableau at the exhibition’s entrance contains excerpts from On the Education of Women, a 1783 text. ‘Abandoned at birth,’ the tableau reads, ‘neither slaves nor tyrants. Their only resource was to seduce. A smooth skin. Inflamed blood.’

‘Look how far we have come,’ Kivland seems to say. Yet when the delicate pleats and rosy cheeks and r’s that effortlessly roll off your tongue fade from memory, when you’re walking home in the dark and frosty wind of December in London, you have to ask yourself: So how much further do we have to go?

A Wind of Revolution Blows, the Storm is on the Horizon
Until December 13, 2008

Chelsea Space
16 John Islip Street
SW1P 4JU

Tel: 07841 783129

www.sharonkivland.com

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

No related posts.

A complete lack of exercise in my life drew me to Fulham’s Dance Attic Studios, along with a friend who wouldn’t take no for an answer. It’s hard to maintain the British ‘don’t care’ attitude when you’re gyrating in a room full of strangers to the Holly Valance version of Kiss Kiss. It helped that I could actually do it, I admit. No one likes to find out that they’re hopelessly inflexible and uncoordinated.

The hour-long Tuesday class at the studio began with some warm-up moves, which is where you find out exactly how Beyonce and Shakira do those things they do, and realise that they’re not so impressive after all. You also realise at this point that your arms have never really had much of a work-out before, as you snake them around like Cleopatra. “It should hurt a bit,” teacher Fleur Estelle calls helpfully from the front.  That’s a relief. 

We learn how to shimmy, and the wonderful thing about this class is that at least half of the women – and they’re all women – have those Turkish belly dancing skirts on, so the room is filled with the sound of light jangling metal and giggling. It’s a great way to feel less self-conscious about the fact that you’re wiggling your bum as fast as you can, while watching the fat on your stomach wobble in the mirror. 

“Let it all go,” beams Fleur, “it’s cathartic!”  She, of course, is absolutely tiny, with not an ounce of fat on her, and her T-shirt is pulled up so that we can see the precise movement of her hips along with everything else, so it’s easy for her to say.

After all this wriggling around, during which time the class has relaxed, we do some basic routine action, with our leader in front calling out instructions as we follow. It’s a lovely experience actually; you feel as though you have truly learned something and had a great time doing it. And if belly dancing’s not your thing, you can also learn ballet, salsa, Latin, ballroom, hip-hop, street dance and even breakdancing, all at beginner level if need be. And Fleur is an excellent teacher. I shall try not to begrudge her her flat stomach. 

Dance Attic Studios
368 North End Road
SW6

Tel: 020 7610 2055
www.danceattic.com

Image by Alaskan Dude courtesy of Flickr

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

No related posts.

When I rocked up to the Natural History Museum for the last day of London Fashion Week yesterday I knew I was fully indoctrinated into the fashion massive when I was caught bitching in the queue for Ashish.

But to be fair to me it wasn’t exactly bitching. I was merely remarking on a ‘look at me and comment’ outfit that had just strolled past. Somebody with a head tattooed like a garden conceived on acid - complete with little decorative butterflies glued to it - simply holds no desire to blend in (unless they were supposed to be wallflowers on his head). 

Inspired by this ‘trendsetter’ panache I tried enticing a grey squirrel to spend the day sitting on my comparatively bland and unadorned cranium, but alas it ate the bait-nuts and fucked off, leaving me with nothing but crumby dandruff and the overwhelming desire to get a tetanus jab. 

Since my first fashion blog, in which I wasn’t entirely complimentary about the supposed ’stylist’ I met on day one, I have been dreading bumping into her in case she had gotten wind of my venomous bile. But as if to bookend the fashion week experience I saw her on the first and last days. This time she was wearing an ill-fitting purple bowler hat, held high with tight blonde ringlets entwined with orange wire cleaners, Johnny Depp circa Pirates of the Caribbean eye makeup, and a floral suit jacket. She was like a Batman baddy on a severe budget. 

Ashish’s work kicked off with some pretty agreeable urban glitz and army glamour: military bomber and trench jackets cut from bold camouflage print and emblazoned with thousands of shiny sequins. This was pretty cool and some trendy forthright individual could certainly pull it off in the outside world. 

Baggy pants were the order of the day (and the week) and each piece was topped off with a big accessory made from the branded ‘A’ (for Ashish): gold medallions, baseball caps, medals, broaches etc. Whatever happened to sleeping with models to leave your mark, or pissing on them even, heaven knows they could do with even those discarded nutrients? 

The military wear stepped back to adolescence with one poncho/overcoat that looked as if it belonged to a particularly diligent Girl Guide. There were dozens of patches sewed on but heaven knows what that frizzy-haired, pouting, five stone model did to achieve them, she certainly didn’t look very outdoorsy. Perhaps fashion week gave out alternative awards like the ‘scowling’ patch and ‘commitment to the binge/purge cycle’ patch.
 
A piece that got my attention was a black two-piece covered in white handprints. The model looked like a businesswoman who’d been molested by decorators on her way to work, which I assume is a bad look for anyone.   

Achieving maximum points in the ‘what the fuck’ category were sequined square dresses designed as playing cards. Whilst they would make amazing stage costumes for a glitzy production of Alice in Wonderland I‘m not sure you wouldn‘t attract odd looks in Pizza Express. I know it must be boring waiting backstage but finding an excuse to use the models as playing cards is just plain cruel. Yes they are flat and light enough to be used as cards. Yes they’re subservient to the point that they will accept being shuffled as part of a deck, but really, shiny playing cards? What a piss take. 

The pernicious side of fashion was most apparent at the Modernist show at the Mango clothing store on Oxford Street. The VIPs with their ‘stickered’ tickets were unapologetically late; fully exploiting the weight of their ‘coloured sticker status’ to hold-up the show and turn a blind eye to their tardy rudeness.  

The aspiration cattle were left to graze (or as the holding area was the first floor of the shop I guess ‘browse’) in the heat whilst a tiny voice occasionally whimpered ‘those with green and orange stickers please move forward’. It was like a 21st century form of social segregation; where certain colours hold greater rights than others. Fashion has created its own hemisphere in which to sift out the less worthy with a colander of pretension. 

Will Young, having been with the herd for some time, had managed to sidle up to someone who could whisk him through; giving a plumy ‘well done’ to his new found meal ticket as he sauntered past me. The insanity of the fashion hierarchy was already getting on my nerves, and I wasn’t even inside. 

Once the ‘coloured’ people had finally taken their preferential seats and the rest of us had been nonchalantly ushered to ‘stand anywhere at the back’ the show finally kicked-off. 

The bulk of the first lot of outfits were white futuristic dresses perfect for getting married in the matrix. There were some incredibly striking designs using ruffles that looked as though they had been beautifully stenciled from a pile of fluffy napkins using the sharpest knife possible; 3-D design at its most beautiful.
 
Unfortunately there seemed to be a lot of last minute hemming.  Some of the skirts looked like my mum’s curtains: huge lazy stitching by non-fussed aesthetically challenged persons. Overall it was a touch too purple and white for my tastes. Perhaps Silk Cut was trying to advertise under the radar since tobacco is no longer viable for legal promotion. 

Half way through the collection I decided I couldn’t take anymore and left. Fashion week has been like holding my breath underwater for an uncomfortable amount of time. Finally coming up for air was incomparably relieving.

Despite spending a week swimming alongside the current best and rubbing fins with the catch of tomorrow I feel that my fashion gills will never set in. I will never survive in these waters. I am destined to fulfill my needs with low-cost clothing from the cheapest outlets, ignorant to the ‘hottest’ trends and ten steps behind the cognoscenti; and after seeing the vile industry people this week I’m grateful for my shortcomings. 

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

No related posts.

Taking place in the salubrious setting of the Paul Hamlyn Hall at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, this show was the most auspicious of my London Fashion Week outings thus far. I was off to see the coveted collection of Nicole Farhi. My eyes were peeled for celebs and my chest accessible for autographs. 

Though I consider myself one of London’s many cosmopolites, one place I still feel lost in is fashion circles and this show definitely upped the ante; I was unhealthily concerned about ‘what to wear’. 

After careful consideration and a perusal of my less-than-adequate wardrobe choices I opted for my traditional jeans and T-shirt, though courageously (for me) I tried out a little scarfy number; but even that left me feeling like a young child in a story who’s strayed from the path, and I fiddled with it annoyingly throughout.      

If the men who attend these things are the supposed fashion cognoscenti then I now live in fear of a future filled with large black shiny corsages and the return of the undercut. It is cases like these, and the resurgence of the skinny jean, where I’m thankful for the evanescent nature of fashion. 

Where I tend not to appreciate the ever-evolving catwalk is when it comes to my wallet. I have a million plus cardigans that I rarely wear now, so they better not go out of fashion just yet. 

Is it just me or does crazy high-fashion look worse on boys than girls? Men like Gok Wan seem to have gotten dressed whilst half cut, in the dark, and with one arm tied behind their backs; but the women they style continue to look great. 

Whilst the setting was pretty amazing it didn’t feel as authentically ‘fashion’ as the previous shows at the Natural History Museum. The glass atrium provided too much natural light, there were wooden chairs instead of cool black stools and the catwalk was on seat level and arranged in an S shape. The whole thing seemed a little twee. It was like taking afternoon tea in an upper class conservatory and the attendees seemed to mirror this with their twin-sets and understated clothing. 

This whole quintessentially British tea party feel was enhanced by the collection. An abundance of similarly-cut conservative dresses in varying gross floral designs; teamed with over-the-top wicker hats and giant bows.

The models themselves looked like emaciated grandmas in their aged dresses, it jarred. It was like the upper class children at high tea had dressed up in their mother’s (and grandmother’s) dresses and pearls and were playing at catwalks. I half expected the models to be wearing shoes that were four sizes too big. Long sleeves worn under the dresses further enhanced the anachronistic look of the clothes and the difficult to look at wire-cleaner-arms of the models. 

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

No related posts.

Caroline Charles knows how to put on a good show. Opting for a live band instead of a banging soundtrack was a great way to enhance the quality of her collection at London Fashion Week. Though, when the band was announced it wasn’t clear if we were told ‘to clap’ or if the band were called The Clap. Either way I thought it best to avoid my usual behavior and try not to get backstage to bone the cellist.

Kitted-out in some nice swimsuits the models grouped at the opening end of the catwalk feigning conversation like a cluster of attractive ‘50s housewives at a pool party. The live jazzy music fitted the scene perfectly and it was probably the best conversation those models had ever had; even though they were most likely just mouthing ‘rhubarb’ and smiling. 

The playful interaction continued throughout the show as the models acknowledged each other along the catwalk, crossing paths mid-walk. One particularly gorgeous specimen filmed the paparazzi on a handheld camera whilst she walked, turning the camera on the press and putting a rare smile on the concrete camera monolith. This playfulness definitely did more for the clothes than the traditional sour-faced stalking. 

The bikinis themselves were like safari disco-wear: lots of bright orange, pink and yellow animal print. Unfortunately they were a bit cheap looking. If I was a fashion mogul my coin toss would always land on the side of real fur; spray painting the animal, making it dance for money and then skinning it in the name of fashion. That would definitely have looked better. 

After the big flesh and colour parade it all went a bit Working 9 to 5 on acid. More bright colours but this time it was ‘look at me’ officewear, mini-shorts and suit jackets worn unbuttoned over bras; office attire for horny anorexics basically. Can’t wait to see Evans pull off their own version for size 18+ women. 

My fashion companion particularly liked Charles’ line of dresses, and I must admit they were pretty; the kind of stuff you could see making an easy transition from robotic model to ordinary girl. 

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

No related posts.

Sunday morning I arrived bright and early at the Natural History Museum to peruse the opening collection of London Fashion Week spring/summer 2009. It was like a scene from The Wizard of Oz (if the yellow brick road had a tedious queue). There was an abundance of backcombed lion’s manes, a lot of brainless chatter and the obligatory heartlessness; despite the rare sunshine you could still feel the chill of vacuous eyes dressing you down (and then up again in different outfits). Also, much like Dorothy, when I finally reached the end of the road I felt a little fucked over; there were no goody bags.   

Whilst queuing patiently to have my satiable thirst for fashion quenched I was set upon by some overdressed relic with more self-worth than a lion ruling a jungle consisting entirely of earthworms. She force-fed me her companion’s business card like an angry gaoler would a suffragette and then insisted on telling me a tedious story about her collection of £40,000 worth of vintage clothing and her lavish LA parties. Being unemployed I received these tales of grandeur as well as the most adamant of suffragettes; it stuck in my throat and was hard to swallow.   

I don’t think she could decide which piece of her expensive collection she should wear so she removed all the zips and wore them instead. Her young ‘stylist’ friend’s (I think daughter) fake tan was so alarmingly patchy she looked like a jersey cow with impetigo. Not fully content with that eyesore she had scraped a year’s worth of crusty old eyeliner from Russell Brand’s unwashed linen and shovelled it around her own eyes (‘trowelled on’ isn’t the appropriate analogy here as that would have suggested some semblance of aim). A piece of red rag that was once perhaps a make-do curtain tie-back was oddly fastened around her forehead to complete the budget pirate look. You would trust her to be your stylist as much as you would hire a racing car driver who turned up drunk in a rusty mini-metro.  

Once I had endured the queue I felt fully deserving of the six mini bagels I unhinged my jaw to consume, and headed to the catwalk for London Fashion Week’s opening show of Paul Costelloe’s spring/summer 2009 collection…   

I was slightly distracted throughout by a lady with a ‘Sarah Jessica Parker does robotic alien-contacting headgear’ (see SJP SATC premiere hat). It was so much like a tinfoil antenna that the plasma screen started beaming in images of little green men. Still, good for her if she can get a signal on the tube.   

Costelloe’s collection consisted mainly of casual wear. Some of it was pretty cool. The overuse of rope made it a little bondagey but I liked the general cut and the excess buttons, though I think this stuff looks better on men (see Rex’s exit outfit Big Brother ‘08). 

I wasn’t sure about some of the drab khaki materials and baggy bottoms; he left room in the bum area of lots of his pieces, inflating them to look like a baby who’s been dipped in the swimming pool wearing its nappy.    

My other head-scratcher was the misuse of black feathers and beads. It was as if he was an accomplice in a mass raven murder and was gradually siphoning off the evidence. The feathers were so out of place and ruined what would have been otherwise nice, amicable outfits.    

Also, I am aware that high fashion and comfort can’t always holiday together but one outfit looked particularly itchy, and so not worth it. It was like a short grey mini-robe with a hood, and made out of this gauzey see-through cheap stuff. The only appropriate person and occasion for this piece would be a slutty lesbian brown owl on camp trying to be down with the kids and pork one of the other leaders. 

A neat little design trick he played with a lot of his stuff was that he designed it to create an hour glass female figure. On the models it looked a bit like a plastic bag tied to a pole and inflated by the wind but at least it gave them a nicer, less sub-human shape. So that falls on the side of good say I. 

So it was a military, puffy, feathery, urban mix which had some high points and some 60,000 thousand leagues beneath the sea points; there was definitely a sense of incoherence but perhaps that was the point. Whatever the case he sort of pulled it off.   

When he walked out at the end to take his bow he looked so much like a mad old professor that I think he may have created his collection with the use of the periodic table and a couple of test tubes. I was expecting a funny little camp fella in ridiculous garb: black rimmed specs with a strategically placed measuring tape worn as a scarf.    

Given the queue, the air-kissing and the odd robot woman it would be easy to dismiss it all as pretentious bull, to denigrate it completely on the grounds of its air-kissing and the rest of its shiny polyester veneer of social self-importance.   

But, this stuff will eventually filter down through the various levels of malnourished foreign kiddies to H&M and then to its final stop on my poor ass and no-other-choice back. Much like the annoying woman I encountered in the queue, fashion is difficult to avoid completely. I’m not exactly sans fashion myself. I do have style of some sort, and just because I’ve fallen flatter than the model’s chests, my life as empty as their plates and my cashflow as powerful as the penile blood flow of a sugar daddy pre-Viagra, does not give me the right to throw stones.

Also ever tried aiming a stone at a lampost?  I’d have very little chance of hitting one of the models then.

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

No related posts.

In this age of ‘budget boutique’ hotels that pride themselves on shab-chic, The Park Plaza Victoria doesn’t quite keep up with the style set. Sure it’s comfortable in a conservative, corporate, non-descript kinda way, and well-equipped with conference and guest rooms. It provides a place of quiet repose after a day pounding London’s pavements. But it’s not hip, and it’s definitely not rock ‘n’ roll. Here you’re more likely to find American tourists donning matching rucksacks and pastel sweaters (oh-so-casually draped over the shoulders) than the Primrose Hill set trashing TVs and snorting coke off grand pianos.

But if you wanna unwind there’s a pretty heavenly little health spa tucked away in the hotel’s basement. It’s nothing to match Agua at The Sanderson - with its dainty, white-curtained, cloud-like ambience - but it offers no-end of remedies tailored to de-stress and revive.

Victoria Therapy Suite has a sauna, steam and relaxation area, and two therapy rooms offering Swedish, traditional Chinese acupressure and lymphatic drainage massages, as well as a full range of beauty treatments including facials, manicures, pedicures, body wraps and hand and foot healing.

From the hotel lobby head downstairs via the lift to the third basement where the gym is, past the pent up, off-duty office workers hammering the treadmills like little rodents on running wheels, and there you’ll be greeted by one of those opaque glass cube walls that were big in bars in the ‘80s (think Cocktail), which borders a secluded therapy area behind reception. The whole look is pretty dated with white towels draped over cane chairs and trance tunes blaring from tinny speakers, but the Victoria experience is not about décor or sound systems, today it’s all about my 30-minute Swedish massage.

After completing the prerequisite consultation form (name, address, medical history…yadda yadda yadda) my polite therapist, Alina, whisks me off to a darkened den where I bask for half an hour in aromatherapy-oiled heaven as she kneads my back and shoulders like putty in her hands. Hunching over a computer all day means I’m about as relaxed as a paedophile in a playground, but with Alina’s healing touch I drift off into a state of bliss for one precious half hour. Who needs a pretentious hotel suite when you can have sweet relaxation?

A 30-minute Swedish massage costs £30.00

Victoria Therapy Suite
Park Plaza Victoria London
239 Vauxhall Bridge Road
London SW1V 1EQ

Tel: 020 7769 9885

thefitnesssuite@pphe.com
www.victoriatherapysuite.com

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

No related posts.

With the summer’s diet resolve now limper than a tea-drenched digestive it’s time to submit to the sugar rush, and Candy Cakes makes falling off the diet wagon tantamount to an artistic pursuit. Witnessing the epilepsy-inducing camera flashing that surrounds the shop front it could be assumed that the Beckhams are inside stark naked. The media scrum is owed, however, to some humble little pies. 

Candy Cakes is duplicitous in its ability to be quintessentially British and American at the same time. Its quaint setting and over-the-top cakes (which are essentially cakes with candy on top) are a fresh alternative to a bland-berry muffin in the same-old Big-bucks coffee conglomeration. Surprisingly enough this is not a culinary faux pas, like an American with an effected British accent (or vice-versa). Quite the opposite this is a harmonious blend of cultures with both ‘delightful’ and ‘awesome’ results, depending on which side of the Atlantic you frequented your crib on. 

A bright and friendly environment with treats to match; Candy Cakes provides freshly made cakes daily and they are constantly trying out new and exciting flavours and combinations. Current recipes include indulgent triple choc fudge and raspberry with apricot as part of their fat reduced range. All cakes are then regally crowned with brightly coloured sweeties. They also cater for allergies with gluten free and sugar free cakes.

Candy Cakes
36 Monmouth Street
WC2H 9EP
020 7497 8979
admin@candycakes.eu
www.candycakes.eu

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

No related posts.

The retro clothing market is becoming increasingly cluttered, hence the epidemic of lacklustre stock sweeping London. One time exemplar traders are now attempting to pass off last season’s retro pastiches from the ubiquitous Gap and H&M as original vintage wear; a somewhat radical interpretation of original stockists.

Enter stage West: Beyond Retro has long been supplying the East End with top-end vintage threads, but it is not widely known that the finger-on-the-pulse Canadians, who import from warehouses in their home country, have opened a store in Soho.

This is not an uninspiring regurgitation station, but a plethora of high quality gems. Creaming off only the best-handpicked items from all over the globe, you can expect to find hundreds of one-of-a-kind garments.

Beyond Retro clearly has an eye for the current trends (employing trend analyists to maintain the quality for which it is known) with its highly selective stock tipping its hat to the High Street. Prices are what you would expect: reasonable but not extortionate for the market.

Whilst there’s the familiar foraging specific to second-hand retail, finding something great is more penguins-in-a-zoo than needle-in-a-haystack; the best garments will always favour those prepared to rummage.

The store has an amazing collection of 1930s Bakelite, an endless supply of vintage boots, and of course the old favourites: Western shirts, college sweatshirts, chunky knits, printed Tees and accessories.

Also, whilst I’m sure it may not be the intention, some of the more flamboyant garments will make for excellent fancy dress if you need to get kitted out for any of this summer’s music festivals.

Beyond Retro
58-59 Great Marlborough Street
Soho
London
www.beyondretro.com

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

No related posts.