Good Advice

... from ID Magazine:

"Think positively, exercise daily, eat healthily, work hard, stay strong, worry less, dance more and love often. ...You don't have to be old to be wise... "

POPLIN in How To Spend It

Joy wears POPLIN hand-printed silk Marlene PJs

Available Here

We were delighted with the article about POPLIN in the FT's How To Spend It. 

Read the article here

Marilyn Style

I have just come across a really hilarious interview with POPLIN muse, Marilyn Monroe, which includes this typically kooky 1950s advice on diet and lifestyle. 

“BREAKFAST. I’ve been told that my eating habits are absolutely bizarre, but I don’t think so. Before I take my morning shower, I start warming a cup of milk on the hot plate I keep in my hotel room. When it’s hot, I break two raw eggs into the milk, whip them up with a fork, and drink them while I’m dressing. I supplement this with a multi-vitamin pill, and I doubt if any doctor could recommend a more nourishing breakfast for a working girl in a hurry.

DINNER. My dinners at home are startlingly simple. Every night I stop at the market near my hotel and pick up a steak, lamb chops or some liver, which I broil in the electric oven in my room. I usually eat four or five raw carrots with my meat, and that is all. I must be part rabbit; I never get bored with raw carrots.

P.S. It’s a good thing, I suppose, that I eat simply during the day, for in recent months I have developed the habit of stopping off at Wil Wright’s ice cream parlor for a hot fudge sundae on my way home from my evening drama classes. I’m sure that I couldn’t allow myself this indulgence were it not that my normal diet is composed almost totally of protein foods.”

Our Marilyn Silk PJs are inspired by the quintessential Hollywood starlet's feline glamour: black leopard jacquard silk with a leopard print trim. Classic but slightly outrageous, like their namesake... 

Limited Editions AVAILABLE NOW at Ave 32

Tim Walker: Storyteller

It was "back to school" for me when I visited the Tim Walker "Storyteller" exhibition a couple of weeks ago: the Courtauld Institute of Art, where I did my MA in Fashion History, is also based in Somerset House, so my Saturday afternoon treat brought back lots of happy, ink-stained, library book-laden, memories.

But after a dream-like wander through the East Galleries, filled with Walker's whimsical photographs and many of the visionary props he uses to create them, my eye was firmly fixed on the future and the madcap designs and ideas for POPLIN that his images always inspire in me.  

It was so refreshing to go around an art/fashion exhibition- Walker rides both horses- with people laughing, smiling and relaxing, and without the usual self-conscious stiffness that a gallery environment can provoke. 

These are just a few of my favourite images, but I have a particular fondness for the self-portrait in PYJAMAS above! Kindred spirits indeed... 

Tim Walker: Storyteller runs until 27 January at Somerset House London 

Entry is FREE! 

Reading in your Pyjamas

Although Amazon is wonderful in its convenience, for me it's all about real bookshops with beating hearts, and Lutyens and Rubinstein in Notting Hill in particular: it's my hands-down favourite.

 I always dawdle at the front of L&R, browsing the new crop, and getting tips from the (mostly) lady bibliophiles who work in the shop.

Here are a few recent and highly recommended finds. Best enjoyed tucked up in bed or sprawled (elegantly) on the sofa in a pair of POPLIN PJs!

- Why be Happy When You Could be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson 
I won't list the prizes this has won, I'll just say that it's a moving insight into Winterson's understanding of her unconventional childhood and the unconventional adulthood it shaped. I found this memoir challenging because of the absolute nature of Winterson's emotions and my own resistance to her polemical story-telling. Perhaps you don't have to believe every word someone says to enjoy their story...

- The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves by Siri Hustvedt
This is a pleasingly esoteric meander through the over-lapping worlds of psychiatry, neurology and psychoanalysis. A blend of personal anecdote and passionate research. Like an into-the-night (pyjama clad?) conversation with a very wise and possibly slightly neurotic friend.

- Alys Always by Harriet Lane 
The claustrophobic London literary and publishing spheres are the setting for Lane's gripping and quietly provocative novel. The eventual chill creeps up on you gradually- Lane is an excellent raconteur! This compelling novel has been foisted upon many of my friends, and they have ALL wolfed it down and loved it!  Hope you will too...

Happy #readinginyourpyjamas! 

Breakfast Muse: Jean Shrimpton

Jean Shrimpton is our current gamine, bed-in-breakfast muse. Really enjoying wearing our POPLIN PJs inspired by her effortless '60s style in the slinkiest navy blue cotton with classic white piping. Exclusive to Avenue 32. 

Shrimpton Classic PJs 

Available Here 

Valentine

Before there was the new season of Downton Abbey to get snuggled up in-front of on a Sunday night, in your POPLIN PJs... there was Parade's End.

Ford Maddox Ford's wartime novel was reworked for the small screen by Tom Stoppard with an impressive cast of names including POPLIN favourite, Rebecca Hall, and Benedict Cumberbatch.
But it was new name, Adelaide Clemens, or rather the character she plays- Valentine Wannop, who became our latest girl-crush. Her flighty, noble character is the perfect foil to the haughty wife played by Rebecca Hall, and we were rooting for romance to blossom between her and the most stiff upper-lipped of all heroes- Christopher Tietjens.

Anyway, this isn't a review of the drama itself, but a quick snapshot of Valentine's wonderful look: a shock of fairy-like blonde hair, ladylike buttoned up collars and a puff of broderie anglaise, finished off with a suffragette sash. How chic!