Last of the goodies....

The news that we are closing next month should sound sweeter when you know that we are starting our closing down sale TODAY! Here's a reminder of some of the luscious goodies you might want to get your mitts on.....all at 30% off!!!

Westwood perspex trinkets in neon pinks and greens with crystal highlights.....

Polka dot APC PJs make the best Christmas presents....not to mention the slippers....

Plastic and enamel Sonia remainders to brighten up your olds with a bit of new...

Cosy A.P.C. jumper dress to team with woolly tights...we've got a few pairs of them left too!

Spriggy teamed with cardigan is a favourite combo of mine from A.P.C....

Uncharacteristically pretty Westwood jewelry would make anyone smile for Chrimbo....

Can't go wrong in a boyish A.P.C. cap, you know you lose a lot of heat through the head this time of year...

Nothing to wear to that party?????? Not anymore...

You know where you are with an orb....and we've got them on everything!!!

Seriously, you've been great, ladies and gentlemen.....thanks for battling your way through the chattering classes upstairs, supporting our bijoux emporium and being part of our niche....

We'll stay in touch.

Madame x

So often I'm asked....

"Do you have any men's clothes?" And I'm somewhat hesitant to answer in the negative. For this reason...

Who's to say an A.P.C. 'womens' peacoat wouldn't look smashing on a chap?

Or indeed, why wouldn't a confident young man feel like slipping into a cheeky Eley Kishimoto bunny sweat? The answer is never say never, never doubt yourself and go go go for it!

Madame x

And in other news; Pyjamas!

Lola is Beauty asked me for a snap in the A.P.C. madras polka dot PJs for her super blog ....she's been whipping herself and her readers into a frenzy over them over the past weeks! This was a new blog for me and it was a lovely surprise to find another soul who thinks as highly of Diana Vreeland as myself; I've only gone as far as immortalising her on one of my Madame flyers, Lola takes it to a whole other level whereby you can put questions/problems to La Vreeland and she will quote D.V. appropriately and solve your query!

So, check out my pic....you'll see I'm averting my green face! I was suffering from a sicky bug on that day and felt like death-not-even-warmed-up but you get the gist of these wonderful PJs. My advice: for £55 you can buy the jim jams, keep the top to wear out - it's classic peter pan collar is all over this season's A.P.C. collection - and wear the bottoms with a vest for bed! The slippers are also A.P.C., I've been slip sliding around my flat in them all cosy.......

Madame xx

Femme Realness

I was so pleased to sell the last gold A.P.C. "Rolling Stones in Marrakesh" dress to the lovely Jack....



This is a boy who can swish in this and a gold Marc Jacobs wedge yet fully intends to casualise the garment and introduce it into his daywear attire over a black jean and heavy boot for instance. If you want to see the dress debut, you should turn up to his "Femme Realness" night at the George and Dragon tomorrow night for that is when he shall be wearing it.

Madame xx

Ima into this A.P.C.

Ima popped down the other day to have a browse at the new A.P.C. and ended up taking armfuls of the stuff into the dressing room! I'm no Sarah Lee but I snapped her in a few of her favourites. If you haven't been down to see the new collection, this gives you an idea of the goodies.....and another drop next week!










Madame x

Here Beginneth.....

...........the A.P.C. photo-frenzy.....grabbing Sarah by the camera-strap as she strolls by seems to be working a treat!!!!! I only had to draw the shoot to a close because I was feeling slightly compromised in my Victorian urchin A.P.C. boots......you see I'm a madame who likes to give the illusion of stature, and happy as I am to find a flat I like, I felt like i was disappearing into the pavement somewhat...eyes seemed to be boring into me ...."why, she's tiny!!!" they seemed to be saying!!!....or of course it could've all been in my tiny mind!

But enough about me (actually never enough about me!)....here's the best....and more to come next week!





D.I.V.I.N.E.!!!

Madame x

Spring?

So this is the time of year when we get to look at NEXT spring's offerings clothingwise.....which is why I hopped on the Eurostar, or rather dragged my carcass onto it - it was the morning after Ponystep - and curled up in my seat nodding between sleep and consciousness all the way to Paris to see A.P.C......

And this is what I saw...

I always enjoy appointments with Iris, she knows the collection back to front and is fun to hang out with too, so time passes really quickly.....and she notices when I'm flagging and brings on the super-strong coffee!!! We met for a quick vin blanc before my train and I caught up on what she's been up to outside of A.P.C. She's a super-talented illustrator, check out her website here. Last time we were in Paris she was very excited because she had directed her first pop video and the band suddenly became really popular and had a big hit in France, so her video was all over town! This is it, for BB Brunes....

I missed Hughes this time, was hoping to pop into the shop to see him and then the time just flew, but I got to see Olivier (in glasses in the film) and Iris told me he makes music too but is very shy.....will he kill me hyperlinking you to his myspace here I wonder? I hope not!

Lovely creative people, lovely clothes, sushi, good coffee, vin blanc.....and a secret doorway to who knows where?

Madame xx

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

DRESSES IN MOTION

And OOOHHH what would you know, I wrote GREET Street! You all know I meant Greek though right? While anyone with any sense has been out in the sun feeling the good vibes from the change of season, I have turned into a creature of the night and been up all night wandering around with a drink in my hand and asleep all day...


Wastemen. And look at the lovely guy in the background who thinks so much of us!

I'm just glad I didn't have a moment as unfortunate as this:



No - that isn't a spur of the moment impromptu pussy cat fancy dress outfit. Believe me. It is what you think it is.

But I blame Madame for starting off this weekend of debauchery - I followed her to the George and Dragon on Thursday night 'just for one' [after making the video above of the A.P.C. and SONIA by Sonia Rykiel slinky dresses] and it was all down hill from there. Nervous Stephen's exhibition, Molly's 21st birthday party, the Real Gold magazine launch... Cava, Warm Kir, drinking from teacups and £2 Whiskey and cokes. I have had the best weekend in a long time tho'!

Despite all that, I haven't been able to get Madame's A.P.C. silver dress out of my mind. Apparently there is a gold one too!



xx Lektrogirl

Favourites No 4

So I was thinking about which pieces are my favourites yesterday. Thought I'd choose a slinky slithery shiny selection, particularly since I've hardly taken off my A.P.C. silver gymslip since I got it.

(Luckily I had my roots done today...).

I'm going to keep posting people's favourites on the blog because so many of you have said that it was only after you saw us all trying on stuff in my "You're Gorgeous" video that you fancied a certain piece, so if anyone wants to elect a particular purchase from this season and wear it on the blog you are hearby very welcome to do so.

I also love the oversize leopard Sonia dress, it's so oversize in fact that it doesn't initially register as leopard, it's very classy I reckon and feels so gorgeous on the skin too...


And I had to include the satin A.P.C. tunic which is the most classic, almost 1920's looking little number. The pink lines around the bottom look like they've been painted on with a paintbrush, sort of wobbly...


We always have a lot of cotton 'day' things in but I think all these pieces have a bit of glamour and pizazz, don't you?

Madame x

Favourites No.3

Another of our favourite ladies, Sandra, modelling the brand-new-in madras plaid sundress yesterday. The sun had come out and everyone was feeling chipper and ready to expose their shoulders!

The morning promised so little but yesterday turned into such a beautiful day, AND I had surprise visitors! I hadn't seen Laurence since before Christmas and Andrea in an AGE so it was so wonderful to see them..

And Jack, who worked in the shop over last summer came by and speed-talked me through the last 6 months or so of his busy life at fashion college and plans to move to Milan for his placement...

I was exhausted at 7pm when I eventually locked the door. Tonight I'm djing and maybe slipping behind the bar occasionally at the George and Dragon (2 Hackney Rd), I become a more blowsy version of myself calling everyone darlin' when I get behind those pumps....do come down for a pink gin!!

Madame xxx