Emilo Pucci and Liberty - Something Special

Many Australians live abroad and it's not always easy to be so far from home. We miss the highs and lows of everyday life and if you did your travelling in the early Naughties, you lacked the internet resources to communicate easily.
In many ways this distance makes other, special bonds to form. When I was away from home my mother experienced some personal tragedy of her own and I  could not be there to comfort her. So, in an attempt to make up that distance I went to Liberty of London and bought her an Emilio Pucci handkerchief and sent it to her with the simple note "If you have to cry, at least do it into something beautiful."
It was a much appreciated gesture. When I had a sever case of heartache it was my mums turn, she had a package of Liberty handkerchiefs sent to me. Not just one but a whole stack in an array of patterns and colours, again with a note 'Use as many as you need and then wash the sadness away.'

For this reason, Liberty hold a special place in my heart, it reminds me of my mum and holds great nostalgia for a time in my life when I was young, brave, adventurous and learning a lot. I long to return there, with a purse that will extend further than a handkerchief for my mum and a desire to offer her a gift that reflects just  a tiny bit of her value to me.

Got my Nails did at Miss Fox

 Being pampered at Miss Fox in Melbourne is a true girlie treat. From the moment you enter their Little Collin St doors you are in an urban oasis.  The ladies have gone to great effort to offer a haven from the hustle and bustle of the city below. It modern art deco at its finest and shows that old fashioned service and custom care has not entirely left this world.

      

 They offer everything you could imagine service wise. From waxing and massage to nails and hair. They are spread over three levels and once you are arrive you don't want to leave. I had a nail treatment and got all that I was after and more. Of course they were on time and professional but, more than that, they were relaxed and friendly. For such a vast space the various areas still feel cosy and relaxed.

 If you want to take your visit to the next level you can indulge further in a piccolo or bottle of champagne while you unwind and get beautified.

Be Positive

Tonight Channel 7 in Australia will show the world Charlotte Dawson's last interview. An interview she tapped only days before taking her own life. Charlotte was a presenter on Australian and New Zealand television for many years, she was a celebrity and she was a victim of bullying.
Tonight's program will call for a week long cease to cyber bullying and a for people to take action against those who let their deadly, poisonous, hateful attitudes out into the world via their keyboards.
This is an important message for young and old. Anyone who engages with social media should be aware of it and everyone must understand that the impact of it is very real and sometimes fatal.
Chic Exchange is all about positive media. We make a conscious decision never to post critical pieces that is designed to limit people or diminish what others do. We do not believe in spreading hate or criticism because there is already too much of that of in the world and for most of us, enough of it in our own heads. Never has the adage been more true...If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.

French Women...Aren't any different to the rest of Us.

So much has been written about French women in the past few years. From the series of books, French Women don't... , to various profiles on Axelle Laffont and Betty Catroux. What is so special about French women? One must ask. The answer is: nothing,
Stylish, beautiful, carefree confidant women can be found anywhere and women reduce themselves and their own capacity by reducing these attributes to some sort of national quality. Any woman can be stylish, any woman can have great confidence and every woman IS beautiful.
This reductive approach to the many positive attributes of a woman prevents women from achieving these qualities themselves. One may simply think 'Oh, I will never be confident, I am not French.' As is confidence is in the water supply for French women to consume.
Any woman, anywhere in the world has the capacity to be anything she wishes. there is no birthplace for motivation and striving to achieve.
What does exist is an environment where women have less negative talk about what they look like, how they feel and what they can do. When women gather in groups and bemoan all their negative attributes they reinforce them. Women need to talk more about what they can do, what they do have and what they are. Not the roadblocks to these achievements.

Badda Bing Badda Blog

The Chic Exchange blog has been very neglected over the past month, with real life taking over and there not being even the moment it takes to post a pic. There are no excuses. nor is their any next website design by way of reason to give. It just didn't happen.
Don't we all have day's like that? Where it just doesn't happen.
I was meant to wash my hair - it didn't happen.
I was meant to go to the gym - it didn't happen.
I was meant to call my mum/best friend - it didn't happen.

What does happen when things aren't happening? Communication stops, we stop talking, we stop texting, we stop emailing and we sure as hell stop blogging.

When all this silence is going on and so much in NOT happening what are we doing? If you are anything like me you are learning about yourself. So, here's what I have learnt this last month:

1. When you argue about money with your partner you look like a greedy arsehole.
2. When you argue about money with your partner nobody wins.
3. You can say 'No'  to anything that feels like too much.
4. You are in control of your own life, you just have to take it.

What have you learnt about yourself that other may benfit from?

April Booklist

April's booklist is all about books from other places. Books in translation can often be wonderful or they can magestically disappoint. If a translation is not done well the syntax can be lost and even the most poetic novel rendered a bore. Thus, this month is all about commiting to exploring books that have been transformed.

The new books for the month are: 

How we are Hungry

The Inheritance of Loss

Le Grand Meaulnes

Therese Raquin

1. Life at the Marmont by Raymond Sarlot
2. Nightingale Wood by Stella Gibbons
3. The Complete Short Stories of Truman Capote by Truman Capote
4. In My Shoes by Tamara Mellon
5. The Untouchable by John Branville
6. The Chemistry of Tears by Peter Carey
7. I am Dandy by Rose Callahan
8.  The Seven Addictions and Five Professions of Anita Berber by Mel Gordon
9. The Freudian Slip by Marion Von Adlerstein
10. The World According to Karl Lagerfeld by Karl Lagerfeld
11. The Flying Mannequin by Freddy
12. Memos The Vogue Years by Diana Vreeland 
13. Risotto with Nettles by Anna del Conte
14. Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof
15. The Society of Timid souls by Polly Morland
16. C.Z. Guest: American Style Icon by Susanna Salk
17. Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt by Amanda Mackenzie Stuart  
18. Junky by William Burroughs
19. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolf
20. Confessions of an English Opium Eater
    
21. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
22. The Philosophy of Andy Warhol by Andy Warhol
23. The Virgin and the Gipsy by D.H. Lawrence
24. Secrets of a Fashion Therapist by Betty Halbreich
25. Deviant Love by Sigmund Freud
26. Seriously...I'm Kidding by Ellen Degeneres
27. Solar by Ian McEwan  

How to be a model

Don't you just love a fashion fairy Godmother? We all have one, a friend, mum, crazy aunt, gay best friend or beloved shop assistant who can always transform something drab into something fab on us.
For Lena Durham its Hamish Bowles (some girls have all the luck). And in this case he shows her how to strike a pose for Vogue.
Move over Madonna...

Link to video here.