2 x 6!

The boys turned six yesterday. Nathaniel and I have been together longer with the boys around than not. I can hardly remember not being a mum. But I wouldn't change it for anything. My boys. Six. Christ.



The "P" on the cake is for Paul Frecker who also shares the same birthday. And is their Grandfather Lady and my rock.



Madame x

The Great Unsaid

Vive le Punk is an intriguing film of Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren talking at the retrospective of their work in 1993 at The Horse Hospital. I went to the Horse Hospital on Tuesday night to watch the film with Paul Gorman, Caz Facey and El Vez. Strange to view the piece in the very space it was filmed. You find yourself flicking your eyes from screen to surroundings as Vivienne leans against a pillar, thinking, is that the one? The film is a gem. To have Westwood and McLaren in a room together is a rarity in itself, since apparently they don't communicate any more and hadn't for several years previous to this meeting.



Dressed in similar gentlemen's overcoats and regarding each other with much suspicion it's an incredible study in awkwardness and the unsaid.....Vivienne Westwood spends the first half of the interview smoking, wincing at McLaren's incessant narrative, drinking her way through several glasses of red wine and barely being given the chance for a word in edgwise. Both are incredibly eloquent and brilliantly eccentric and Vivienne gets the last word in an amazing comment the young.....I don't know if there are plans to realease the dvd, it needs considerable cleaning up as there's a lot of irritating background scrapings and fidgeting, but it would be worth doing I reckon.

We had an intelligent discussion following the screening....

....and Paul chose to demonstrate his impressive wink...I'm always impressed with this as my face and mouth have to go into a state of animated shock to coax a wink, but as you can see, Gorman is a natural...

Great to spend time also with the wonderful El Vez, he is the Mexican Elvis impersonator but so much more...check out his En El Barrio video here....

And check out Madame the Giant here....

El Vez is not tiny as this picture suggests, I was just clutching him to my chest to show I like him!!

Madame x

Put a bow on it!

Yuri came by with some samples for very cute summer accessories he'll be designing for exclusive sale in the House of Maison Bertaux! Really delicate little bows, in 5 colours (if you count black), necklaces and brooches in skinny skinny leather....I was drawn to the black to set off my outfit....but I'm not sure Yuri was as thrilled as me with my look!


"Like sticking a sequin on a rat's arse" is what his eyes seem to say.....

Madame x

Mates on Plates

I keep mentioning my and some of the Maison B ladies' trips to Good Vibes, which is Nahid's power plates studio, but if anyone wasn't sure what we do there take a look at this!

I did a film of Nahid for YouTube - this is the first of many, and I bet you'll be inspired to give it a go! When I tell people I go to power plates they imagine being wobbled around with a rubber band round your middle like something out of a cartoon, but you can see it's much more subtle than that. PLUS you can do it in full make-up, PLUS you don't need trainers, PLUS you can pretty much whip of your skirt and get on! And it "takes care of business" as Nahid says, kind of firms you up in all the key places - especially bum! Find out about Good Vibes and where her studios are http://www.goodvibesfitness.co.uk/, but check out the Mistress of the Good Vibes Universe herself.....


Madame x

p.s. Yes, that is a Sonia sweater she's wearing, and yes she got it at Maison B!

At Last....

I've found something to wear with my Sonia frilly apron! I know we've sold out of these now but it really was one of my favourite, if frivolous pieces of the season at Shop at Maison B...

I had to take loads of my clothes off hangers at home to use for the Wills Moody jumble on Sunday, and since I have a lot crammed into a too-small space I "discovered" this old Bella Freud dress i've probably had for about 12 years. It goes with the apron PERFECTLY - especially if you're really going to GO for the french maid theme - so glad I found it!

I felt like wearing something new as I'm doing my turn at the George and Dragon tonite....my Madame persona has oozed into the proceedings with the girls behind the bar wearing their hair in rolls, and I get to bustle about behind the bar and also do the odd song in-between playing records...another home-from-home!!



If you're over east, do pop by for a pink gin!

Madame x

SUSIE BUBBLES'S BIG UP!!

We love Susie Bubble and she loves us it seems! We didn't make it to the Time Out Top 100 Shops List, but Susie sets the record straight in her post here on Susie's Style Bubble.

THANK YOU SUSIE!!

Oh and P.S. We also supply Milk Bar, the cafe on Bateman Street, with Madame A Trois china for having a cup of tea there. Apparently Bjork was in the other day and drank her green tea out of this cup:



xx Lektrogirl

Happy Birthday Superduck!

I missed his drinks at the French last night but Superduck came by today for Birthday cake and it was as though Maison Bertaux had created a new cake in his honour!!! I've never seen this Chocolate Montblanc before...it was filled with chocolate stuff instead of chestnut and cream and then dusted with chocolate powder...

Splendid isn't it??!!
So, Superduck needed to ready himself for the huge treat he was about to take on...

And as I watched him eat it hopefully I'm afraid I was only offered but one mouthful...


Still, it was his special day, not mine....

Madame xxx

Check me out!

Hey, check out my interview on Ponystep!
http://www.ponystep.com/


Madame x

Jumble Tomorrow

I've got a stall at this tomorrow (Sunday). You should come by, it's a great crowd, the bar is open all day and they play great music too!!!! Bag yourself a bric-a-brac bargain, bit of vintage, records or cds, scoff a cake have a swift half! It's a perfect Sunday outing, lots of kids running about and stuff....


Madame x

Why Why Why?

I watched and very much enjoyed "Legally Blonde" (again) last week and thought how great Reese Witherspoon is.....and what on earth had happened to the perky perfect lady of late...then I was just watching "Family Guy" - which I LOVE - and a commercial came up with Reese in her current "role" as Avon's Global Ambassador!!! GLOBAL AMBASSADOR FOR AVON?????!!!!!!



Why oh why oh why oh why oh why..........?

Why?

Madame x

Have you seen this?

A lot of you already will have seen this if you are fans of Lektrogirl's blog but I wanted to post it anyway because I love it so much!


Madame x

Mad (Wo)Men

So, Sarah was rather impressed that I looked very Mad Men, that lovely looking series on BBC4 about an ad agency in the 1950's which I really love when I remember to watch it...in fact you can watch it with the sound off and it's pretty great to look at, not least the super handsome Jon Hamm, the lead....

This is definately the decade that works for him though, I've seen some red-carpet-designer-stubble type pictures of him in real life and don't feel a THING.

So....quite thrilled to be told i was giving it Mad Men Realness:

But then something happens to me around Sarah Lee and her camera of truth...before long I'd lost my neck, shattered all illusions of icy repressed housewife cool and was kicking up my heels like Dick van Dyke meets Mrs Overall...

Then Emma got hold of the picture.....I give up!

You will note from the pile of dirt that I was actually working rather hard with my colour co-ordinated broom....

I'm not a doggy person (apart from in the pic above!) but I met Lucy's dog Raisin yesterday and I've fallen in love with him...

He's so gentle, soft and beautiful and you can put your face right in front of his without any fear, also he puts his head in your lap and is so lanky he can't sit up straight, he tries and then his little feet slide down like this...

And just look at them together!

They make each other look even better!...Lucy here in pistachio Tocca sari dress.....
Then her husband David who's a musician arrived, you can find out about him here

And the whole family looked so colour-coordinated! Some people make you sick! Did they decide over breakfast that today was all about caramel and chocolate.....?

I prefer to accessorise on my own, my Eley Kishimoto mary-janes seem to go with EVERYTHING!!!!

Socks back on again today....I predict next week we will see the sun again.....

Madame xx
,

We have a winner!!!

Lovely Nina is the winner of our competition to photograph yourself/have someone photograph you, in one of this season's pieces purchased at Shop at Maison Bertaux!!!!

Well done Nina! Your Madame A Trois trio is boxed and ready for you to pick up and we'll throw in a cake of your choice to pop on your cake plate! - a drink's too wet without one after all! - Thanks for your entries, we'll do this again I reckon, it's very difficult to choose, but for now Nina will be showing off her Sonia by Sonia Rykiel top on our home page!



Apparantly this is her at "work"!

Madame xx

Isis is...

...my friend John Marchant's new gallery. I went to visit last week having missed his grand opening (as it were) and had to share with you...

It's at 20 Hanway Street, that marvellously seedy little home to Bradley's Spanish Bar and numerous tapas bars and after hours drinking dens, record shops and being just off Oxford Street it's surprisingly stayed pretty much the grubby same apart from the incongrous Hakkasan chinese restaurant round the corner on Hanway Place, a super sleek high-end eatery. When you get to number 20, go to the end of the corridor, turn left up the stairs and come upon this beautiful oasis.....

I've known John for probably close to twenty years frighteningly enough, I met him on the Body Map stall at Camden Market where he used to work on Saturdays as a youngster, we'd bump into each other every few years, he's been working with some incredible artists in New York, Paris and London but always wanted to have his OWN space...and Isis is it!

His first exhibition by Ruth Marten is called Histoire un-Naturelle and the initial assumption is that these are beautiful antique prints, then you realise that she has minutely doctored, rearranged and collaged them to alter and play with the original engravings. Some of them are hilarious..

"Canapes"

"Angry Men"
...and a lot of them are beautifully hand-coloured as you can see. I loved this one called "Ladies Goods" which I thought my ladies would appreciate! :

I was feeling very covetous as I walked around the gallery, the scale of the pieces really makes you want to own one....but I did leave clutching the book of the show, a limited edition which she has hand-coloured, so if you can't stretch to an original work, the book is very special. What's really fun when looking at the actual works themselves is trying to see exactly where she has made the incisions or re-drawn parts. A lot of you work in and around Soho and I urge you to pop along, it took me five minutes to trot round there from Maison B, you could definately go in your lunch hour, for opening hours and a map go to their website http://www.isisgallery.org/. There's some exciting shows coming up, John gave me a sneak preview of Alice O'Malley's portraits and there's an exhibiton of Antony Hegarty's drawings coming soon.

Get yourself down there, I insist!

Madame x

GOOD MORNING

You know it is going to be a good day when a YouTube video lands in your inbox from a mate in Denver miming a long to Betty Boop. Meet Sara T!

xx Lektrogirl

P.S. Madame did her first sing song at the George last night! I'll let her tell the tale! xx

Jayne County would be proud.....

Some friends just GET you so don't they? My friend Andy has lived in Hollywood for god, must be about eight years or something crazy....we used to live around the corner from each other when I lived on Greenlanes and he in Finsbury Park, talked on the phone pretty much every day and he can make me laugh probably like no-one else. Both have a tendency to full volume around each other with the excitement levels going off the radar and have more than once been told we were like the male and female versions of each other.
In fact, here's an embarassing photo of us taken about 17 or so years ago! He's on far left and yes, there I am in the middle!


Anyway, now we go months without speaking or being in touch which miffs me but we're both guilty of crazy busy lives and when we eventually speak all the bad feeling dissolves away. So, after months of silence he sent me an email to find out if I'd received the package he sent about a month before.....I was gutted that it must be lost but then the other day I went to pick up a package being held for me at the post office, I assumed it would be records or cds then it was the wrong shape....

Andy had been to an auction at a 78 year old nightclub singer's house and bought me her nighties!!!!!! They're late sixties early seventies, nylon, lurid...and wonderful!

I've seen Jayne County play many times over the years and when she's doing a rock n roll show with a band, her act would often centre around removing nylon nighties throughout the set, she must've had about eight one on top of the other - my point is that these are exactly the kind of nighties she would've been wearing!!!! I love them and I love Andy for knowing me so well!!! (and he's been known to get gifts slightly off the mark like the mink ring he sent a vegetarian friend for example!!!)

This one is pale blue with puff sleeves and a double layer of nylon at the front for modesty and lovely lace trim.
I'll call her Edith (for Edith Massey).

This one is ankle length and flourescent pinky-peach and I definately feel like Sylvia Miles when I wear it, so she's Sylvia.

This one I think I'll name for Ann Margaret, but not in the Elvis period, after she fell off the stage onto her face in Vegas, but then got her career back because she's such a trooper, it's also a baby-doll length and Ann has the legs to carry that off.

And the last is Just Jayne for the genius, inspirational STAR that is Jayne County!!!!

Madame xx

Art in the Tearoom

I'm always getting enquiries about Tania's exhibitions upstairs in the first floor tearoom/gallery. At the moment she's got thel legendary Nobby Clark"s exhibition of photographs he took on the opening night of Noel Fielding's "Psychedelic Dreams of the Jelly Fox" painting show. Nobby Clark has taken pictures of rock n roll greats the Stones, Al Pacino and many more and these limited edition photographs are for sale and going fast!!!

Talking of the Jelly Fox show, Tania has a few more of the signed posters (below), so if you're a fan you'd better be quick because when they're gone that's it!!! Give her a call on 07985 395079 for any art enquiries...


Madame x

I'm into ESCAPE!

Yes, it's definately the way forward! Spur-of-the-moment, jump in the car, never mind about spare knickers and off to the sun and sea! I didn't think we'd be going anywhere this weekend and had a lot of chores planned (oh joy), but Nathaniel was doing the Canterbury, Whitstable, Sandwich bootfair trawl and promised to go to Wheeler's for crabcakes if we'd come for lunch. I didn't believe him when he said it was blazing hot in Herne Bay but sure enough six miles outside the sun was RAGING! Now, Nathaniel has only cooked for me properly twice or maybe three times ever so I was shocked and thrilled to see this spead in the back garden on our arrival:

Wheeler's is like the fish version of Maison Bertaux and is in Whitstable. They have three tiny dining tables out the back where you can bring your own booze (I recommend champagne if you're going to have oysters - so decadent! Even a half bottle from the Threshers across the road) You can get takeaway from the front bar....OMG, the best crabcakes, dressed crabs, oysters, fish flans, cockles.....all brought in at the dock around the corner so SUPERfresh!!! It's slightly ramshackle with faded pink paint on the outside and is our favourite treat when we're there.

To walk off our fantastic lunch I went with the boys on a walk to Reculver castle with Nanny Van and Grandad Ray...Nathaniel went to bed, the combination of up at 5am and preparing potatoes and egg mayonaise took its toll! It was soooo beautiful, we walked alongside the most luminous rape field....

Looked over the cliff and vowed to search for crabs next time....

Watched about thirty mods tearing it up (until one broke down) past the mobile homes....and realised they were mostly over fifty - even better!

Then decided, sod it, we'd stay overnight so we could go and visit Charlie the horse and the little ponies and put the chickens away for the night....

Hugo can hypnotize the chickens by stroking their beaks-it's amazing!-and Duke was fascinated so had a go....

And did pretty well, in fact he and the little grey chicken ended up best mates!

There's woods all around the field so we had a little wander and found some English Bluebells, I was watching a programme on tv the other day and apparantly the Spanish Bluebells (which are paler, less luminescent and sort of open) are taking over, I was very excited to find a thoroughbred!

You'll notice I was still rocking the A.P.C. even with wellies, although I've got an enormous mosquito bite to show for it!


But the CUTEST sighting of the whole day was this little baby hedgehog that's been living in the field!!!! LOOK AT ITS FACE!!!!! Who knew they were so pretty??!!!!

No one messes with hedgehogs...only man, squashing them by the thousand I guess.

Then we went to give Nanny Lee's grave a bit of a tidy....she was the boy's great grandma and we always used to stay with her when we went to Herne Bay, the boys adored her....in fact Duke wanted to go in and find her, but we convinced him she'd prefer it if we just did a bit of weeding...


And Nanny Van even had clean knickers - still in the packet if you please! - for me!

Escape......escape.....and come back to London and love it all the more!!!

Madame x

Thank Goodness....

....some of the girls were available on Saturday, including Sarah of course with her proper camera! We cracked off a few new pictures for the website, revelling in the sunshine and even partaking in the odd ice-cold glass of wine and even a creamy slither of chocolate gateau!

Of course Lisa is our Saturday girl so there was no escaping for her! She can carry off almost anything, legs that go on forever and pneumatic body, she's our Saturday Babe and here she is in a couple of A.P.C. pieces:

I love this one in the madras playsuit, she looks like Soho's Daryl Hannah!

And this one has become one of my favourite Maison B pictures, she looks so great in the A.P.C. crochet dress and amongst all the clutter...

Caz had her first experience of the mayhem that is a whistlestop photoshoot at Maison B, in her favourite A.P.C. cheesecloth dress. You tend to relax after we've all cackled at the duds, especially when Sarah helpfully zooms in on a fugly facial expression or boss-eyed moment, and she looks more than fantastic!

Emma's energy levels were a wee bit low when she arrived but a teacupful of nuclear orange nectar later and she was raring to go!

We sat her behind the till out of respect for her tiny hangover and she worked it like a pro in the A.P.C. tiny check shirt:


This photo I think sums up best the lunacy of the day though!"

Keep laughing when I look at it, a couple of nutters! Well done Sarah!

Madame xx

And Sonia....

So also here's some of the hot tops from Sonia....

I posted the dress version of this but the top is soooo lovely...even with jeans, and I never really wear jeans, but I would with this!

Oversize polka dot tee here is great, a nod to the eighties....

How come Sonia do stripes every summer but we never get bored of them? Also comes in pink and red...



And a twist on a t shirt is always good. You can't really go wrong in my book with stripes and polka dots....or cherries.....or broderie anglaise......or crepe de chine.....

Oh, and the stripes with a heart also comes in a tank. Jolie, non?

Madame x

Cake stop....

Time for a cake break. This week's favourite Maison Bertaux cake is the Plum and Almond Tart:

We usually go for creamy or really dry, but this is between the two, the right side of moist with glossy pllum topping and again, delicious with coffee! Love to know what your favourites are....

Madame x

You need to know....

...about some of the new spring summer stuff we have, especially my ladies overseas who keep asking for an update. So in the interests of keeping you all informed, Emma and I did possibly the fastest photo shoot anyone has EVER done, in the shop yesterday. We started outside but got rained off pretty quickly so got cosy on the floor...

First up we have the new Obey t shirts...

One of my favourites is the little girl playing with a grenade.

Disco ball is great and the t shirt is a lovely shape with a shirt bottom

"Peace" which you might have seen flyposted around the eastend around the time of Shepard Fairey's exhibition.

Femme Fatale is one of those lovely Obey faded t's which feel like you've had them for years, super cool graphics....

Proud Parents is classic Fairey, he did an enormous piece based on this at the Truman Brewery.

Lurid. Lovely.

Eighties logo on stripes, on the softest cotton tee.

Haven't got around to photographing the jewelry yet but it's already been popular, rings in the shape of sunglasses, skeleton key lucky necklaces, lockets and the like....

Madame x