Darling could you stay like that just ONE moment longer before you start that stream of consciousness?

"I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don't have complete emotions about the present, only about the past."

So said Virginia Woolf. YES, it's if-we're-going-do-a-shoot-based-on-the-Bloomsbury-set-let's-really-throw-ourselves-into-the-serious-business-of-being-pretentious time, so naturally Woolf will be leading the way through the following drawing rooms and staircases and rooftops, and MY, won't we feel clever and educated by the time we come to the end...

N.B. Anyone thinking of mentioning fridge magnets, t-shirts or other kitsch ways of prostituting the work and names of people who mostly certainly had higher aspirations than seeing their words slapped across cheap merchandise - don't. There's a dear. As a reward here's a nice definition of kitsch to keep you occupied:

"Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch."
- Milan Kundera

I'm selling unusually large badges emblazoned with this quote. Contact me if you want one...

“It was awfully strange, he thought, how she still had the power, as she came tinkling, rustling, still had the power as she came across the room, to make the moon, which he detested, rise at Bourton on the terrace in the summer sky.”

And momentarily turning away from Mrs Dalloway and looking accross two continents to another beguiling, bisexual woman, doesn't Rosa look uncannily Frida Kahlo-esque in this picture? If she turned round a little and revealed a mono-brow?

Of course she is supposed to be Woolf's sister, Vanessa Bell so what we've ended up with is a Franessa Kahlo lovechild. Wouldn't that have been amazing? A mere 30 year age gap, a native tongue, differing degrees of political radicalism and a vast expanse of land and sea separated them. It could have happened...

Those of you raising biological objections are far to literal minded. But here is what their courtship might have looked like. (And yes, the one in the red is Salma Hayek playing Kahlo. And yes, the film is a good as it looks)

"The truth is, I often like women. I like their unconventionality. I like their completeness. I like their anonymity."

The clothes. You're supposed to be talking about the clothes, not hypothetical lesbian love children... Ok, how stunning is Rosa's shirt? Cream shirts people. Good ones are not that easy to come by, but if you lucky enough to spot this rare beast, then keep hold of it for look how wonderfully it offsets her skin tone, giving her an pinkish English-rose glow. And then, naturally, you will want to wear it with something dark (jeans are just as good as skirts for a different kind of look) to accentuate the effects of all that creaminess through contrast...

"There is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us, and not we, them; we may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking."

As this is, ostensibly, a fashion blog, I can't imagine that any of you reading this won't recognize in those words that moment when you put on that new jacket, tried on that dress, caught sight of yourself as you were leaving to go to a party (ok, ok, stood for ages right in front of the mirror. But coincidentally. That just happened to be a really comfortable place to stand) and felt suddenly that delicious possibility that you could be anyone, anyone that you and your clothes decided you were going to be.

This is why throwing on roughly the same comfortable jumper and jeans combination that you've been wearing for the last week every day is a mistake. You are depriving yourself of the fun of dressing-up, in the most enjoyable, childish, make-believe-who-you-are-today sense of the word.

"What is this terror? What is this ecstasy?" he thought to himself. "What is it that fills me with this extraordinary excitement?"
It is Clarissa, he said.
For there she was.

AKA me. For such is my middle name. I'm not particularly aware of having ever inspired such dramatic self-questioning, but hopefully my parents were at least wistfully imagining that I would vaguely live up to that aspect of the character rather than the 'oh she could have been wonderful, she could have been somebody (she could have been a contender) and what a tragic, haunting waste it is that she's no more than somebody's wife' aspect.

However it's quite a good get-out clause for explaining why it all went wrong if it does... "You see, I was fated to be an upper-class-English Stepford Wife"

"When the Day of Judgment dawns and people, great and small, come marching in to receive their heavenly rewards, the Almighty will gaze upon the mere bookworms and say to Peter, “Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them. They have loved reading.”

Did you get the visual joke the stylist is playing here? It's Virginia Woolf and she's a blue-stocking. Gosh us Cambridge kids are witty sometimes... More importantly, Sarah is demonstrating how to do grandma chic with that wonderful knitted cardigan. It's the colour and the texture and the cosily-slightly-over-sized arms that you can wrap your hands up in. Interestingly, Prada are going crazy for the thick textured look this season by putting it on tights... Which is interesting. Not entirely sold (as Rosa says, close up they look like the ridge on a lizards back...) but if this has a knock on effect and we see more excitingly textured clothes on the high street this autumn then that will be a Good Thing. (Although we all know that Sarah's jumper is probably from a charity shop and that this is really the place to find such things)

"This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room."

This observation needs to be updated. "This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with the great issues and underlying truths of our time through the exploration of a man's sexual fantasies. This is an insignificant book because it deals with a woman's romantic and erotic desires. We shall call the later chick lit and give it a pink cover adorned with the silhouette of a pair of high heels. We shall publish the former as a serious, weighty hardback and proclaim the genius of it's author from the culture sections of every national newspaper."

No? Anyone notice the recent press coverage of the latest Martin Amis?

(I'm going to assume that despite me not saying anything about it you DID notice the coat. No? GO BACK AND LOOK AT IT WITH LONGING)

"It flattered her, where she was most susceptible of flattery, to think how, wound about in their hearts, however long they lived she would be woven..."

There was actually (ahem) a very thoughtful constructed storyline behind this scene - we wanted to capture the contrast between the two sisters. Virginia's fierce intelligence and depressive tendencies always cast her as the observer and outsider of any group, unlike Vanessa, who had a rare ability to charm everyone around her, weaving the many men in her life into a single, unconventional, household that included her husband, her lover and her lover's sometime boyfriend.

How do you know all this Jessica? Wikipedia? Your English degree? No, Katie Roiphe's fantastic book on the Bloomsbury set... Reads like a series of brilliantly crafted short stories, each one another window into the sexual and domestic arrangements of people who wanted to believe that relationships were as easy to experiment with as the art. Voyeurism that leaves you feeling you're on intimate terms with all those vague, well known names. Much better than Grazia...

"You send a boy to school in order to make friends - the right sort."

We won't stop and consider how many boys (and girls) mummies and daddies sent you to your alma mater for just that reason (that and wanting you to get into Oxbridge). Instead we will take this opportunity to really appreciate Rosa's cream shirt. Yes. Yes, it is even better than it looked in that earlier photo isn't it? And George's jumper - all those colours and patterns should look a mess but they don't. They look beautiful. This is the sort of thing you will only find if you are shopping with a very open mind and you let yourself pick something up that you would usually dismiss but when you try it on you realise it is actually the best thing ever and you are never going to take it off ever again, not even when you are paying for it, which is tricky if they have those heavy electronic tag things that they need to remove behind the counter...

"It is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top."

Which surely is an extremely good reason to idly procrastinate when you're supposed to be writing your essay. You're not wasting time, you are fishing for submerged truths. Also, doesn't Sarah manage to channel the spirit of Virginia remarkably well?

The Bloomsbury Set for Varsity Fashion
Stylists: Matilda Bathurst, Charlotte Wu, Argyro Nicolaou

We did this shoot in Newnham, where Simona kindly lent us her room. With the balcony. And the view. ALSO Newnham girls are given beautiful furniture in their rooms - old wooden trunks to put their clothes in, Victorian writing desks and elegant side tables. Other colleges must have had all these things once upon a time. WHY DID THEY GET RID OF THEM?? And then they get to walk through William Morris wallpapered corridors everyday. Newnham girls, hold your heads up high, you walk in beauty (yes, like night). William Morris fans, check out the church opposite the entrance to Jesus sometime - instead of wallpaper the prints are painted onto the stone and the place is a strange marriage of beautiful colours and a gothic atmosphere.



THIS SATURDAY. 10.30 to 4.30. IN THE GUILDHALL, MARKET SQUARE. £2 ENTRY.

I'm going just to stare in lust and longing. And maybe take some photos. Come, come, come. Who knows, you might find a dressing gown. Or a crazy multi-patterned jumper. Or a room with a balcony and a view...

I leave you with Caravan Palace and their wonderful electro-fied gypsy jazz. Go Spotify their whole album. Then dance around your room in that silk dressing gown till it's time for cocktails.