Painting

This is my latest painting.... You die-hard SB fans my recognise the outfit - inspired by AW09.

My Favourite Films

Cinema is the new black. But only if it is an Everyman. The Rolls Royce of cinemas. A double seater sofa, lovely cup of tea, popcorn and a great movie. Rock and roll!

Saw this the other day.... great movie!

So in honour of my new obsession, click here to see my all time favourite five movies.
Now if I could just watch them at the Everyman...

London Fashion Week N Peal Party

Last night N. Peal celebrated another fabulous season with a big party in the Burlington Arcade. They took over the Arcade with a wonderland theme and invited the great and good of the world of cashmere. It was rather gratifying to see that pretty much everyone was decked out in N Peal. As Creative Director, I thoroughly abused my position and wore a piece I have been coveting from the new AW12 collection...available in charcoal soon!

Japanese Brand Project

Twice a year we design a collection for a Japanese brand (the name of which I can't tell you or I would have to kill you). This is the carnage the day before we sent it...

And this is the beauty of the finished design project. So proud!

New Year Retail Therapy

Its been a crazy month for me and I apologize for the blatant lack of communication. The whole giving birth thing has slightly sidetracked me.
I like to think that I am tuned in to my emotional side and as the mother of a newborn I am very aware of the perils of post natal depression. I do believe that prevention is the best cure so I am taking every precaution and investing heavily in myself right now. In my opinion retail therapy is as valid as cognitive and I am sparing no expense. The main benefactor of my diligence is Natalie Massenet. I have abstained for 9 months and now that I am no longer carrying the equivalent of a small cat and the sales are raging… Game on.
Any baby blues are banished by the sight of that dapper little NAP man in his smart black van pulling up at my doorstep.

We are now on first name terms, in fact he is even giving me style tips and is happy to wait whilst I try on and give a twirl. Yesterday he even recommended I ‘may also like’ the Alexander Wang Velour vest to go with my new skirt. Now that’s a service for you. Is NAP the best company in the world? (That is not a rhetorical question).

A New Addition to the SB Family

Hi Everyone! It's Danielle again. Sara has been rather busy this past week so has asked me to let you all know her big news...the latest member of the SB Family has finally arrived!
Marley Beau arrived on Sunday morning, 27th November. Both mum and baby are home and doing very well.
Isn't she a cutie??

Wish You Were Here!

Check out Amiee and Helene with our friend Loretta on the boat in the Hamptons!

 

Now that’s fashion!

Summer Winter Love

Hello, Bernie here! It has been a while since I’ve posted so thought I would update you all on the brilliance of AW11. Last time I had just finished the look books and after a few changes and drafts we all decided on the best layout and got them back to the office in a couple of days, very exciting stuff and they look gorgeous! 

Once they arrived we very quickly sent them out again – envelopes, press release and address stickers galore. Then the waiting game, trying to work out when they would arrive with the magazines and who would be starting the AW11 shoot call ins, it is very strange to be excited about Harris Tweed coats and leather gloves when its so sunny but that’s just the way the fashion year goes!

Anyway, everyone loved the look books, the AW11 shoots have started and our samples are all over the world being shot. With the tweeds, leathers, liberty dresses and variety of accessories whatever the shoot we have something to fit in! Of course SS11 is still going strong and has been so successful but it really is very pleasing when you have a whole collection of new beautiful things to work with.  We have some very nice features coming up in September and I will get them onto here for you all to see asap! 

A Trip To Palm Springs

So Palm Springs was an amazing surprise in the middle of the desert. The drive out of LA was less than stunning and then suddenly you hit the desert. And you are in one of the most amazing landscapes in the world.

Palm Springs

My Saviour from Death by Sugar

I realise that to blog about food is a little sad. I could be telling you about Paul Mcartney playing harmonica to Ginger #1, or Neice La Blonde playing drums with Gilby Clark of Guns N Roses. But actually I am pretty obsessed by the food here in LA.

I have just eaten my first proper meal in 2 weeks because the food here is so spectacularly bad. It is absolutely loaded gshmoaded with sugar. Even bread has more sugar than your average merangue and I have found it really hard to stomach. Anyway today we found Joan's On Third and my world has shifted on its axis... Soooooooo yummy! Big up Joan's!

Deli lunch at the amazing Joan's On Third

Stripy Barnet Be Gone!

Amiee isn't the only one to migrate out to the City of Angels. Our friends Leanne and James moved out last year to set up their own salon - Galvin Benjamin so of course I had to pop by and check it out.

The outside of the salon

Rules Are Made To Be Broken...

With all the resolve of a jelly fish I have failed in my New Years resolution. A mere 53 days in to NYR #1 and I have to conceed defeat in the face of a beautiful pair of Georgina Goodman boots.

Behold the beauty of The Boots...

God I feel so much better! ...Who knew restraint was the mother of depression?


Also, did you notice Amiee and I in our Dan Baldwin scarves again! Read about how SB HQ has gone scarf crazy here.

When work becomes play

Very serious meeting in the SB HQ with Candice from the Outnet. We actually design an exclusive collection for the Outnet which means a whole design and development process. I need to confess that this is nothing like work and very much more like fun. I can also tell you that SS11 Sara Berman for Outnet is going to be phenomenal! Think florals, broderies, leathers and so very much more… See behind the scenes snaps of the atelier in action below.

Amiee looking particularly like she might take off in this photo as she models our mainline SS11 Salamander Rose Biker jacket for comment.

Candice and the SB team in deep discussion over the merits of mink versus coral.

Me modeling a party-wear option (with panache I feel).

Indian Experience Part 2: Tirvannamalai

After spending the working week in Delhi, I hoped on a plane to Chennai. My close friend Harriet has been living in a rural town called Tirvannamalai for the past ten years. Tiruvannamalai is a pilgrimage town in the state of Tamil Nadu and is quite the spiritual destination due to the famous Annamalaiyar Temple located at the foot of the Annamalai hill. Tiruvannamalai has long been associated with many yogis and siddhars, and more recently the 20th century guru Ramana Maharshi, making it a very spiritually auspicious place. Basically it is in the middle of fucking nowhere but there is the odd crusty that pops by to notch one up on their sandal wool bedpost of hippy traveler credentials. Clearly I had packed all wrong and soon realised that my 4 inch glittery black stilettos were to have no part in my adventure but was proud to reveal my 1998 Miu Miu gemstone sandals which I had been saving for the last 12 years for just such an eventuality as finding myself in the hippy arse end of nowhere.

Tiruvannamalai

And this was what I pondered as I sped out of Chennai and drove the 3 and half hours to Tiru. How could a girl as obsessed with packing as I am have got it so wrong? However I soon reached into a karmic place and redirected my channel of thinking towards my chakras which was a stroke of luck because fashion felt a long way from home.

The Value of Altruism

When I was 11 the careers advisor at school told me that I was well placed to work in the caring profession. When I recount this to my friends they fairly hold their sides with mirth as I am not known for my overwhelming compassion... In fact when Handsome found out he was Diabetic my initial reaction was to roll my eyes and declare my hopes that this would not become an excercise in man-flu-ism. That said, I try to be a Good Person. I am aware that fashion is probably one of the most egotistical (and faintly ridiculous) industries in the world. The fact that it is also economically one of the largest goes little way toward defending its position in the face of its consumerist aim to make people spend money they don't have on things they don't need. And much as I (mostly) enjoy my job, I don't buy into the idea that clothes make people happy and therefore I am Doing My Bit. Frankly on a scale of 1 to 10 in social philanthropy (my role as a mother, partner and friend aside) I am probably hovering around a 2.5. And it is for this reason that I make a point of doing my bit for others where I can. Don't misunderstand- I am certainly not going to win any medals for Outstanding Acts of Human Kindness but I do think it is the little things that make a difference to others and at least make me feel like a better person (no such thing as altruism-the virtue of selfishness and all that jazz).


So cut to Tel Aviv airport at 8am this morning... We had decided to catch the early bird back to London which entailed leaving our apartment at 6am with a gazillion suitcases, 2 sleepy children, a husband in 'travel mode' (many of you will realize that this is code for 'seriously edgy with a short fuse pre-lit') and limited coffee intake. Just setting the scene. On arrival the check-in queues are ridiculous, and security was the usual OTT rigamarole (each person subjected to a personal Mossad style interogation). This is quite a labour intensive process- what with the juggling of kids, bags and husband and at some point in all this I noticed a elderly woman huffing and puffing in irritation behind me. Clearly she was annoyed by the circus that is my family and our faliure to progress with more speed. I also noticed that she was carrying a heavy bag which she had to keep putting down and picking up due to the sporadically moving queue. Feeling my halo start to glow I picked up her bag and indicated that I would carry it for her and therefore eliminate her problem. In return she indicated her graditude and we progressed through security. After an hour of queuing, checking and searching we finally made it to immigration. I had puffed, panted and sweated with this womans bag whist simultaniously managing my family through the airport, but at this point we were obliged to present ourselves as a family and I was confronted with our parting of ways. Oh the dilema! Should I take her bag through wait on the other side for her allowing my family to go ahead to our gate? Should I find a porter? What could I do? And all the time I was pondering this conundrum of how to help this little old lady the queue was progressing and we were nearing the front. Suddenly a new immigration booth was opened and my little old lady- seeing her moment had arrived reached down with a new found and surprising athleticism, grabbed her case and fairly skipped over the the booth. In a second she was through and with a hop, skip and a wave was off and away. She may as well have thrown "Suckerrrrrrr" over her shoulder as she sprinted down to her gate. Handsome is on the floor with laughter as I rub my sciatic nerve and as for me? Well I am just reminded of the blind man I once helped across to road only to find on the other side that he wasn't blind and had in fact been fully aware that my boob was my boob the whole time he gratefully grasped it during our crossing.

A Catch-up!

Apologies. It has been too long... But it is only now that I am lying on a beach and sufficiently recovered that I feel the urge to put finger to blackberry and fill you in on the past month. It has been a bit nuts to say the least. We started with Handsome’s 40th birthday party which he shared with his twin bro. We decided to recapture their youth and throw an old skool house party in their family home in Holland Park. Dan Williams DJ'd and frankly brought the house down with his 80's mixes and 70's funk and at some point in the early hours the council took it upon themselves to pay us a visit... Nothing changes! Everyone was on great form with some rocking outfits and dancing into the wee hours. Mum is now best buddies with Jade Jagger and Amiee and I left for Paris with no voices and major hangovers!

The Paris show at RMO showroom was 2 weeks of full on fashwani. I am pretty fluent now. I realised that I had graduated to a whole new level when I heard myself telling my friend Olivia that I was 'really driven by trousers right now'. I kid you not- shoot me now...

The Showroom in Paris 

Separated at Birth

Seeds of Inspiration

So I was talking to my cousin last night about inspiration. He is Big In Advertising and it is his job to understand what makes people desire things. As you can imagine this was a bit of a complex one involving much impassioned gesticulation and basically ended up back at the start of the creative process. 

How does inspiration happen and what starts it off? I was explaining that I don’t actually actively go out looking for inspiration, rather the seeds are sown and at some point they germinate into ideas through a process of living life and looking around.  Sometimes it is frustrating because the ideas are there but just below the surface and something needs to trigger it to let it flow. It is not a process which can be rushed and obviously with a business to run that can be a little unsettling sometimes. However today I found myself at the fabulous Haunch of Venison gallery during a gap between meetings and I must confess that for the first time ever I was inspired by an exhibition. I was lucky enough to catch the Joana Vasconcelos show before it ends this month and for me her work has such strong links to fashion that I couldn’t help but fall in love with it all. The seeds are sown and I am ready to go!

The mysterious incident of the navy tights in the designer's drawer

In the ever changing vortex of taste that is planet fashion there are few truly heinous fashion crimes. Most bad taste can be excused as ‘on trend’ however as with anything in life there are ten comandments which-for the greater good of society and regardless of creative need- should be obeyed. ‘Thou shalt not wear navy tights’ is definitely one of them. Especially if you thought they were black.

Fashion week is an incredibly busy time for us. We are flying madly from appointment to appointment, from launch to dinner to party and somewhere in all that are school runs, parent meetings and tears at bedtime. There is not the necessary time to luxuriate over the choice of ground breaking outfit. The creative dresser within must be reigned in if I am to get anywhere on time and organized the night before. In the dark. Because Ginger #1 is asleep in my bed. And therein lays the problem…. The rogue navy tights luxuriating at the bottom of my drawer undisturbed since last winter have reared their ugly head. Or feet. Whatever.

To be honest it was Amiee that they claimed as their first victim. She rummaged in my drawer shortly before we left for the Value of Fashion launch and she was rocking a beige and black neutrals looks. Except it was beige, black and navy which isn’t a look and in fact an offence and to add insult to injury it only came to light (excuse the pun) under the flash of the photographers camera as her outfit was recorded for Fashion Week posterity. Lets hope they think it’s a new trend.

I was the second victim. Thinking (clearly mistakenly) that the offending item had been taken into fashion custody and were languishing safely in a British Heart Foundation store somewhere I went into the drawer with foolish carelessness. My devil may care attitude was rewarded in the cold light of the taxi cab on route to a charity dinner for HET last night when my vintage Sara Berman lace cocktail dress was ambushed by the surprise appearance of the navy tights. I don’t understand how it happened but I had no choice but to shoulder on, the tights under surveillance. I had a fascinating evening and was enjoying myself greatly until I spotted a fellow fashion body across the room. We did the fashion quick step over to each other and performed the necessary eye sweep and computation. ‘You look fabulous darling! So clever to lift all that lace with navy.’ ‘Oh yes-very next season don’t you think?’

Perhaps I will let the tights out on bail.

A Weekend On Rations

Well kind of. A friend celebrated her 40th birthday in style this weekend in the wonderful setting of the Cabinet War Rooms for an appropriately themed 1940s evening complete with ration book. Thankfully the ration book was merely for effect and the food and drink wasn't actually rationed for the evening! So of course a 1940s ensemble was absolutely essential (it even said so on the invite)...