The Dalston Department Store

The Dalston Department Store was on last week Thursday through to Sunday as a bit of an experiment by the owners of an incredible building come office space; Star House on Richmond Road. It looks like they'll be back in various guises until the end of November, so I'm not playing my irritating trick of telling you about something you can't attend. This time around, the store stocked a mixture of jewellers, home furnishings and clothes, with about 15 different stores to choose from but without that market-like feel that so many of these things have. 

The house, once you've found it has an intriguing, sparse entrance with a warehouse lift to the basement which makes you feel a little like you're in The London Dungeons for a moment, until you step out into the light, beautifully lit space of the store. The owners have a background in store fittings and experiential but they only had a week to put this together, so you can see how clever they were at making do with what they had. I particularly like the lights. 

I was first told about it by Ginny of Fred and Ginny, the lovely vintage seller from the Primrose Hill Vintage Fair I posted about last week. She was there with an even more alluring array of pieces including a vintage YSL Khaki green coat with velvet lined sleeves and collar and a tartan interior lining. This was about 1 inch too big for me on the shoulders. Thankfully, as otherwise I would be £250 the worse for it. 

The main appeal of DDS for me was the jewellery. Katie Monroe was there with some of her signature rose gold knuckle rings, as worn by Ferne Cotton most recently. 

My favourite was Jessica de Lotz. I'm biased because she's a NW5 gal like myself and lovely to chat to but her jewellery is stunning and totally original too. She makes bespoke wax seals, stamps sealing wax with them and then casts them with the lost wax technique. The result as you can see is beautifully tactile and textured pieces with organic sculptural forms and an imprint in the middle. I'm very tempted to get my family seal done by her some time in this lifetime and will be attending her open studio to talk about it more... watch this space.

Claire English's animal skeleton inspired pieces caught my eye too. My Christmas list is getting worryingly long... 

Follow DDS on Facebook to see what's next. We chatted to the building owner as we walked out and he's got some great ideas. This will be the place to avoid the usual mundane roundabout of Christmas shopping this year. I'll see you there. 

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Sisters Grimm: Elle's Halloween Inspiration

UK fashion has come over all Gothic this autumn, so you barely need to dress up for halloween this year. I will be boarding a flight to Dubai so am not attending any parties, however I may be loaning out some of my clothes to friends for their own outfits so I feel I have the right to comment.

Here are my favourite satanic or skull like image inspirations this year... 

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Haute Couture Haunting - Flo's Halloween Inspiration

  There is nothing more haunting than clothes. Clothes survive their wearers, moulded in their shape, worn out by them, and often retaining their familiar scent. They are a visual emblem of what is gone by their very emptiness. This is conjured up by Shakespeare's King John in which a mother's grief for her lost child 'stuffs out his vacant garments with his forme.'

It is also why harking back to the past, to the gothic Victorian, tattered vintage rags and so on, has such a powerfully haunting effect. Here is a selection of my Halloween costume inspiration. The best pickings of fantastical nostalgia that the fashion world has to offer... 

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A load of crêpe

Pancakes have to be the easiest way to make an ordinary weekend morning feel special. I've been making them for years, having been a founding member of the now world-famous* crêpe club at the tender age of 13. 

* The phrase 'world famous' is used loosely here - the other founding members (my school BFFs) now live in Dubai and Columbia, where they are most certainly making good pancakes and boring new friends with tales of old ones.

A heady mix of caffeine and hysteria fuelled our sessions which happened at least once a week, when we would fall off our chairs laughing and play Boggle as though it were a National sport. These times have left me with a life-long attachment to pancakes and a fail safe way of making them without any measuring instruments too. As you know, that's my kind of cooking.  

For the pancakes:

Some flour

Some eggs

Some milk

Some butter

...ok, don't panic all will become clear. The trick to making perfect pancakes is to allow your mixture to flex according to how fresh your eggs are (therefore how much flour they'll take). I use roughly one egg per person. Crack these into a large mixing bowl and whisk by hand. Gradually pour flour into your eggs, whisking as you go until you have a consistent, thick paste. This is how to ensure you end up with a lump free mixture and the right amount of egginess to hold your pancake shape when you toss it. Once your paste is lump free, start adding the milk gradually, ensuring that each splash is properly taken by the paste before adding the next. If you're making american pancakes, stop adding the milk sooner than if you're making crêpes. A proper crêpe mixture should be pretty liquid. 

Once you've finished mixing, heat some butter in a shallow frying pan. I mix butter with sunflower oil to keep it healthy. You have to wait until your pan is pretty hot to pour your first ladle of mixture in - the first one is always the hardest to get right. Once your mixture has cooked through and comes away easily from the pan, you can toss or flip it depending on how adventurous you're feeling. 

Voila!

Over the years, I've had phases of what I like best with my pancakes. On indulgent days I cook blueberries into the pancakes until they burst indigo polkadots into the batter as it sets. These beauties are best served with crisped streaky bacon and maple syrup but come with a serious food coma warning. 

More recently, I've been enjoying fruit salad and creme fraiche, as I did last weekend. This is no ordinary fruit salad, it is in fact one of my mother's finest inventions, which I think she came up with as an adaptation of an Ottolenghi - you can't say I don't give you accurate foodie provenance.

For the fruit salad:

A mixture of your favourite fruit. We chose grapefruit, banana, kiwi, strawberries and baby green grapes. 

The salad dressing is the interesting bit:

1 tsp honey

1/2 lemon juice

Glug of white wine (reisling is the best)

Crushed pistachios

2 drops of rose essence

Cut your fruit into salad chunks and mix. Then make your dressing by whisking up the ingredients in a small cup. Pour over the salad and serve. 

Magnifique.

To serve, add a little sugar and your creme fraiche, fold in half and mange... 

Mmmm. Perfect for brunch, or as a desert.

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