Nina's Christmas Carol

Snuggle up: An assortment of Ocabini cashmere to keep kids cozy.

Good King Wencelas looked down 

on the feast of Stephen

Where the snow lay round about

deep and crisp and even...

Nina Simone was her stage name: 'Nina', from the Spanish niña or 'little girl', was a nickname a boyfriend had given to her; 'Simone' inspired by the French actress Simone Signoret, whom she had seen in the movie Casque d'or. Nina recorded over 40 albums, her debut with Little Girl Blue.  It showcases her ballad voice, described in turn as mystical, sensuous, haunting, melodic and entrancing.  The title song starts off using 'Good King Wenceslas' as a counter to the stark precision jazz background. The Christmas carol expresses her youthful spirit and the jazz lays a depth of experience. Simone plays tug of war in this song, sad reminiscing finally giving way to hope. Sublime.

Here's a Christmas treat:

Snoopy for Scarlet Shoes

In honour of Easy Living's Cultural Editor, Beatrice Hodgkin, featuring our tie-neck cashmere poncho as top of 'the best Christmas presents for 2010 that'll keep everyone warm, cosy, snug and happy - in style', here's a post about super scarlet.

Sonia Rykiel SS11

Miss Scarlet, resident femme fatale in Cluedo, is young, clever and gorgeous. And she rolls first in the game. Played in the TV-series by Toyah Wilcox, Koo Stark and Jerry Hall in turn, the stepdaughter of Mrs. Peacock has a series of  disastrous affairs, including with Colonel Mustard, great white hunter and colonial imperialist, military man both dignified and dangerous.

In PlayStation's Snoopy vs. the Red Baron, the daring dog takes on World War I ace Manfred Von Richthofen and his scarlet Fokker triplane. The Scarlet Jungle, a weird wilderness on the planet Krypton teeming with moving forests of red and purple flora, is where Superman locates magic medicine to cure the inflicted city of Atlantis, a legendary island which, according to Plato, was the site of a powerful kingdom more than 11,000 years ago before it sank to the bottom of the sea.

In the Superman chronicles, Atlantis is a thriving glass-domed subsea kingdom nestled in the Atlantic Ocean forty fathoms deep, with fabulous streets and glittering towers.  Populated by handsome, muscular men who make even Superman seem ordinary, the undersea realm is ruled by the lovely Queen Paralea.

In winter 1950 Superman thwarted an attempt by power-hungry Hajar, unscrupulous chief advisor to the throne, to overthrow the queen in a bloody coup and set up a tyranny in her undersea realm.  The lovely blonde ruler of Atlantis fell instantly in love with mild-mannered Clark Kent who'd arrived there via bathysphere - accompanied by Lois Lane and oceanographer Professor Hubble - and he only narrowly avoided marriage to the love-struck queen. 

It's winter, so layer up lovely: DKNY turtle neck top and embellished dress, Ocabini cashmere poncho AW10, Ruche flat cap, Alexander McQueen Gilly boot, Bottega Veneta clutch, Wolford tights. 

Snoopy for Scarlet Shoes

Charles Schultz, Snoopy and the Red Baron, 1966 and Andy Warhol Any One for Shoes? circa 1956 

Stella Loves

It's official, Stella ♥ Ocabini!
'We love the light-as-air, yet very cosy scarves in an assortment of delicious colours.'

Juke Box Love Song
by Langston Hughes

I could take the Harlem night

and wrap around you,

Take the neon lights and make a crown,

Take the Lennox Avenue busses,

Taxis, subways,

And for your love song tone their rumble down.

Take Harlem's heartbeat,

Make a drumbeat,

Put it on a record, let it whirl,

And while we listen to it play,

Dance with you till day -

Dance with you my sweet brown Harlem girl.

Turquoise Treasure

For those after a quick fashion fix, look no further than top colour turquoise. The it colour for 2010 conveniently survives into Spring/Summer 2011 giving any purchase solid staying power.

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Party time turquoise:  Helena Bonham Carter at the Moet British Independent Film Awards earlier this month. Gucci's gorgeous SS11 ruffle dress.

Perambulate in style: Catwalk Kenzo vs Sidewalk Ocabini. Wrap up warm in Ocabini's cashmere poncho. For an instant fix try our hand woven chiffon cashmere scarf. Accessorise with CA4LA degrede fur hat, YSL flower earrings, Amet & Ladoue ruched scarf, Kara Ross snake braided chain bracelet, Shelpers hand made inlay cowgirl boots, DSquared trousers.

Loren Beven, Kerala 3, 2002
Acrylic on canvas  1.47 x 1.17m

 Opaque and blue-to-green, turquoise is the birthstone of the month of December. Of ancient appeal and among the first gems to be mined; a gold serpent bracelet set with turquoise was found in a pharaoh's tomb. Nowadays, good turquoise is hard to find. Many historic mining sites have been depleted, few still worked. Small-scale and in remote locations, most are worked by hand with little or no mechanization. Ocabini's cashmere is made much the same way.

 Brought to Europe through Turkey from the mines in Persia in the 17th century, its name derives from the French turques. Aztecs knew it as chalchihuitl. Serpent imagery occurs throughout Mesoamerican religious iconography; the double headed serpent turquoise mosaic in the British Museum is thought to have been worn on ceremonial occasions as an ornament, a sweeping statement necklace.
 
 Snakes have a habit of shedding their skins, a kind of reinvention that led the ancients to see it as a power of renewal and transformation. Many move freely between water, earth and the forest canopy, cementing their symbolic role as intermediaries between the layers of the cosmos: sky, earth and underworld.

 Hermes, Greek god and guide to the Underworld, is a popular patron busy minding sailors, shepherds and cowherds, orators and wit, literature and poets. His symbols include the tortoise, rooster and caduceus, a short staff entwined by two serpents.

Tangerine Trees and Marmalade Skies

 

Stella McCartney SS11

There's no getting away from tangerines, oranges and pomelos. The fruits are in season and the shades are predicted to last into spring/summer. After a long cold climate we're in need of some: tangerines are symbolic of good luck and oranges of wealth, their symbolism courtesy of Chinese pun, the words having the same sound. 

Chinese New Year tradition demands decorating with red lanterns and donning red clothes to scare evil spirits and bad fortune; orange will garner the good. New clothes from head to toe symbolize new beginnings.  

The Beatles' Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds line 'tangerine trees and marmalade skies' inspired 60s electronic band Tangerine Dream. Band leader Edgar Froese gigged in Berlin's Zodiak Free Arts Lab, a short-lived but highly influential experimental venue where music was mixed with literature, painting and early forms of multimedia. Only the most outlandish ideas attracted any attention. Froese summed up: "In the absurd often lies what is artistically possible". 

In late 19th century Turkey, Bishop Nicholas, learning of a poor man with three daughters, tossed through the chimney three bags of gold for their dowries. They landed in stockings hung out to dry in front of the fireplace, where they turned into balls of gold, now symbolized by oranges. Father Christmas still brings a clementine for the toe of the stocking of a good girl.

Stocking Fillers 

Ocabini cashmere scarf, Harajuku Lovers necklace, Hermes wallet, Lindor dark truffles, Mango orange glass candle,
Avalya acrylic rose ring, Clarins sunscreen.

Under The Tree 

Hive Modern puppy, Peter Pilotto dress, Ocabini cashmere poncho, Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange,
Kitchen Aid mixer, Converse hi tops, Kodak camera.

Party in a Cold Climate

Louis Vuitton

Slouchy knits plus elegant evening skirts: it's a modern mash-up for autumn/winter 2010-11. A floor-length skirt and jumper combo is the big news in evening wear. 

Vogue.co.uk

Vivienne Westwood, godmother of punk fashion, personifies the potent and subversive originality of British fashion. Married to Sex Pistols' manager,  Malcolm McClaren, she sold her innovative and rebellious designs in his shop on London's Kings' Road, a one-stop style shop for punk rockers looking for safety pins, Union Jacks and studs.

Vivienne Westwood

Westwood's punk rock attitude to fashion evolved to combine romantic tailoring, skillful corsetry and tough-chic accessories. Despite having been worn by Carrie as she was jilted at the altar in Sex and the City, the Carrie Wedding Dress, from Westwood's AW07 Cave Girl Collection, proved so popular with brides-to-be, it sold out in a matter of hours on NetAPorter.com.

For a Vuitton party look dust down your strapless, flounced and ruffled taffeta-silk ball gown and don a cashmere diamond jumper. Dance til dawn and then, for a morning-after-the-night-before Westwood air, slip on red leather leggings and accessorise with an Alexander McQueen studded Union Jack clutch and her 'Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die' ring.

Party in a cold climate:
Vintage 80s Bouchette Boutique evening gown in shocking pink pleated silk with an Ocabini cashmere diamond jumper 

The morning after:
Ocabini cashmere diamond jumper, Horace red leather slashed trousers, Alexander McQueen studded Union Jack flag clutch, Vivienne Westwood sunglasses, shoes and 'Too Fast to Live' ring.

All That Shines

Loren Beven, Razzle Dazzle, 2008

Kōh-i Nūr  'Mountain of Light', once the largest known diamond in the world, belonged to various Hindu, Mughal, Persian, Afghan, Sikh and British rulers who fought bitterly over it.  It was finally seized by the East India Company and given to Queen Victoria when she was proclaimed Empress of India.  A shirt, intended for the afterlife, shimmering with gold sequins made of thinly rolled gold, was found in the antechamber of Tutenkhamen's splendid tomb.

There are alternatives to glittering other than donning a diamond, sparkling spoil of war, or waiting for heaven. Karl Largerfeld's SS09 sequin dress for Chanel comes in black, Christian Dior's 2010 RTW shimmer dress in silver,  Ocabini's hand woven cashmere shimmer scarves in both. Shimmering: moving, shining, light dancing on water.

The glittering

Beneath

the panoply of the bandstand

summer burns still

slanting long fingers that reach

from the ramparts and

hoodwink the season

Poseidon, lugubrious

idles time forgetful

whilst diamonds from dew, a spider

spins the glittering

binds and lulls the current

Subdued by the sun

the clouds furrow brow, submit to

late vermillion.

The sea shifts to autumn

boats float less often

...and then the stars come out...




poem by kind permission of The Divorcee Dares to Dream

The Camel Brigade

Camel cavalry were used long ago by Achaemenid Persians fighting Lydian Assyrians in the Anatolian deserts of nowadays Turkey. A little further east, Desert Battle Dress Uniform, aka Cookie Dough Camouflage, was used by the US in the Gulf War. Its base pattern of light tan, overlaid with broad swathes of pale olive green and wide two-tone bands of brown is scattered with black-on-white spot clusters. Iraqi olive-grey combat patterning, viewed up close, reveals pixellated Space Invader shapes.

Givenchy AW09/10

The silhouette spoke of sharply-tailored warrior-women or a more sensual harem-style seductress, who quite possibly had a dagger concealed in the folds of her sarouel-trousers or jet-jewelled belt....The largely monochromatic palette was punctuated with dramatic gowns and trousersuits in a flesh-tone silk crepe, emblazoned with red and green spikes, cones and studs. Hilary Alexander on Givenchy's Bedouin inspired AW09/10 haute couture collection.

There's not much desert-camo on the camel catwalk this season. Rather, sophisticated tones are blocked together. Fashion pundits agree, camel is classic and versatile, easily paired with black or denim and playful hints of cinnamon, gold or turquoise. It's a colour to invest in as like good camouflage it will adapt with the seasons.

The term camel is from the Arabic جمل, ǧml, derived from a root signifying 'beauty': giving pleasure to the senses, ephemeral and impossible to pin down, just when you think you've caught it, you open your hands to find it was a trick of the desert light.

Catwalk/Sidewalk

L to R: Michael Kors AW10/11, Ocabini cashmere poncho, Seven for All Mankind denim skirt, Missoni beanie, Diane von Furstenburg scarf, Top Shop gloves, Repetto ballet bumps, Alexandra Beth leather camel snakeskin bracelet.

 

Oranges and Lemons

Kandy-Man

In the Doctor Who serial The Happiness Patrol, the Doctor and Ace visit a human colony on a planet where unhappiness is an illegal act.  The Doctor hooks up with Earl Sigma, a wandering harmonica player who stirs unrest by playing the blues. Together they venture to the Kandy Kitchen, the heart of the planet’s governance system, where they discover rebels drowned in fondant surprise, the favoured method of execution of the Kandy Man, a grotesque sweet-based equivalent of a robot bearing a resemblance to Bertie Basset, the confectionery company's mascot. Rumour has it the Kandy-Man is ready to return.

We’ve had Daleks, Cybermen and the Master, but nothing can prepare the Doctor for the Kandy Man. There will be allsorts of danger for the Eleventh Doctor to avoid. He will find himself in some very sticky situations. 
DoctorWhoTV.com

Fortunately, pairing bright and black this season is the sweet without the sticky.  'The Basset's favourite gets a style update' for AW10/11 on Vogue.co.uk. Saccharine shades are teamed with blocks of black and the advice is choose separates in tones of lavender, mint, lemon, tangerine, petal and lime and work with with ebony jackets, capes and gloves.

For the timid, return staple wardrobe blacks to the stage. Taster the trend by accessorising with bright bags, statement scarves, shoes and colourful chunky jewellery.

Top: Armani, Bottom: Ocabini

Lemon Liquorice Allsort: Ocabini Cashmere Poncho, D&G silk-cotton dress,Jimmy Choo Cosmic suede pumps, Alexander McQueen skull bag, Ice yellow gold onyx earrings

Camofleur

Justine Smith, Rise and Fall, 2010

I am rather taken by camofleur, conjuring together tough and trendy with willowy English rose.

Justine Smith cuts and crafts bank notes into intricate, delicate shapes: blossom and butterfly. Camouflaged by bank notes, these ephemeral forms converse money as conduit of power and its associated value systems. Specimen III: Kimilsungia, a sculpture of the orchid named after the infamous dictator, is scalpelled and shaped from North Korean Won.

King of camofluer, Jean Paul Gautier is influenced by street wear and popular culture, yet his haute couture can be very formal, unusual and playful, for example his 2001 camo evening dress, seen below worn by Lily Cole.  In the same year Moschino featured a camo silk-chiffon dress with ammo holster as hip-belt, bullets replaced by hot-red lipsticks. They remind me of illicit marking material, ripe and ready for drawing doodles on living room walls or the outside of tube trains. But then camo is associated with street culture, hip hop 
and graffiti.

[camouflage] can be subversive or simply make you smile. 
Camo has become a classic. It's a paisley for our times.
Richard James, Saville row tailor
  
To camofleur is to disguise, create and express, to become. 
It is a noun, a verb and an attitude.

Loren Beven, Repeat (detail), hand embroidered British DPM, 2008

Camofluer Haute-Couture
 L to R: Jean Paul Gaultier chiffon camo dress, Alexander McQueen snake skin print dress, Christian Louboutin camo pony hair pigalle shoes.

R-T-W Camofleur, Ocabini Style
L to R: Ocabini cashmere poncho (AW09)  accessorised with a Matthew Williamson scarf, TheOutNet jeans, Chanel nail polish, Guiseppe Zanotti ballet pumps and Marc Jacobs rings.

Stand and Deliver

I recently read David Mitchell's Black Swan Green, which I enjoyed, but not as much as Cloud Atlas, which I enjoyed but not as much as I should have.  The Cloud Atlas stories slowly drew me in and by the time I finished Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin'  I was hooked, wound'n bound. Then in all started to unravel, the cleverness of the structure somehow getting in the way of the storytelling.

Adam Ant

There is a scene in Black Swan Green where the protagonist is at a school disco, 80s hits on the dance floor, including Adam and the Ants. It reminded me of my school days, particularly the bitter experience of failed French lessons where the only fun I remember was eating chocolate in fresh baguette on Bastille Day and using Prince Charming for a translation exercise.

I'm the dandy highwayman so sick of easy fashion

The clumsy boots, peek-a-boo roots that people think so dashin'

So what's the point of robbery when nothing is worth taking?

It's kind of tough to tell a scruff the big mistake he's making.

from Adam and the Ants Stand and Deliver

 Stand & Deliver, Ocabini style
 Clockwise from top left: Ocabini cashmere cardigan, Alexander Mc Queen scarf, TheOutNet ruffled cotton top, House of Harlow sunglasses, Roberto Cavalli brocade pants,  Eugenia Kim beret, Alaia zip-edge belt, Aurielie Bidermann gold dipped feather earrings , Laurence Dacade boots,  Joan Shepp ruffle blouse, Mat & Nat faux leather studded bag.

Remember/Forget Tomorrow

'Nowadays you see fashion everywhere but the problem is they are not making fashion for tomorrow'. Pierre Cardin recently opined that fashion designers change styles much too quickly, making it harder to create couture that lasts for years. He puts this down, in part, to obligatory twice-yearly collections. Wikipedia, in its 'Fashion Design' entry, openly states that collections have planned obsolescence of one or two seasons. Forgetting / Remembering.

clas·sic - adjective - 1. of the finest or highest quality, class, or rank. 2. of enduring interest, quality, or style.

Perhaps as a small label Ocabini can do things differently. I try to design knitwear that is classic, but can be worn inventively, combined with more ephemeral pieces to create a new look season after season, such that it is the look that evolves, encouraging creativity and individual expression rather than imposing it.

In tribute to yesterday's Remembrance Day:

On Parade
Clockwise from top left: vintage Chanel, Cooper by Trelise, Balmain, Burberry, Balmain, Matthew Williamson

Here's my red tie-neck poncho, military style: 

Fit for a General
Clockwise from top left: Rick Owens skinny jeans, Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses, Ocabini cashmere poncho, Plein Sud cashmere top, Carolee charm bracelet, Guiseppi Zanoti ankle boots, Burberry leather gloves, Gianmarco Lorenzi bag and shoes.

Combat Style
L to R: C17th Tibetan armour, C19th Japanese samurai, C21st British soldier

One hundred years from now, will they think the same of the last as we do the first?

 

 /ˈklæsɪk/ Show Spe

Memento Mori

Joan Ainley Search: Recall, Reflect, Remember (c2003)

 They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Laurence Binyon

Loren Beven Circles Red (2007)

I am a fan of military inspired fashion.  I have a copy of Hardy Blechman's (of Maharishi label) DPM: Disruptive Pattern Material, An Encyclopaedia of Camouflage: Nature, Military, Culture,  an encyclopaedic two-volume work on the origins and use of camouflage in natural, military and cultural contexts. His innovative street wear designs, such as the popular 1990s ‘Snopants', bonsai camouflage and dragon embroideries rescue camouflage from its unhappy associations with war and conflict.   

camoufleur: (m) n. camouflager, one who camouflages, one who conceals through disguise. Here are some great DPM inspired items: 

Clockwise from top left: Hermes scarf, TheOutNet python effect blouse,  Marc Jacobs painted scarf,  Marcus Lupfer knitted dress, Alexander McQueen skull and rose tote, Dark Side trainers.

 Thinking about death and loss has reminded me of my favourite memento mori, Gabriel Orozco's  Black Kites. He apparently spent six months drawing the checkerboard of black squares over the skull, slowly tracing its bulges, indentations, convexities, concavities, complexities. This ritual links it with traditions from Mexico's Day of the Dead to Latin Europe: bleaching the skeletons of the dead, decorating them, and then putting them on display in charnel houses. Colourful and creative. 

Alexander McQueen

Adrain Searle, reviewing Black Kites says this: 

"As well as a thing of bamboo, string and cloth, a kite is of course also a bird, a scavenger, which in modern times gathers over rubbish dumps, places of human waste and spoilage. It makes one ask over what ruins and dung heaps the artist is hovering for spoils. To fly a kite is also to float an idea, to let a thought doodle in the empty air. Isn't that also what artists do for much of the time?"

Damien Hirst's diamond encrusted For the Love of God suggests a more classical way of viewing the memento mori.  Roman fatalism entices to enjoy here and now in the face of inevitable death. Remembrance Day may be celebrated more solemnly, but it too is a memento mori and reminds that those who died in conflict did so for our future.

 Gabriel Orozco Black Kites (1997) & Damien Hirst For the Love of God (2007)

'Coming into Writing'

A friend came round to dinner last week and on browsing the bookshelves, removed for further inspection Helene Cixous’ ‘Coming into Writing’. It was on the reading list for an MA in Contemporary Art Theory at Goldsmiths that I started but never finished because I moved to Kathmandu.

On paging through it again I started to think about writing, about Cixous’ creative imagination and her inventive, playful use of language that ventures beyond the traditional limits of academic discourse and into the realm of poetry. My dissertation was more an attempt at sounding vaguely academic and philosophical in plain English. The papers I’ve been researching in an attempt to understand what makes good cashmere are dry and scientific, full of conditions, experiments, tables and results. How do I consolidate all of this into a blog that is informative and entertaining?

I live in remote town at the foot of the Himalayas from where, over the internet, I run a small cashmere label called Ocabini with my sister and business partner who lives in London. I spend ages on the internet, looking at fashion, finding inspiration for the next season’s collection. So I thought this blog would be about cashmere and fashion, as well as art, music, literature, life.

Speaking of fashion, I've found what I want for Christmas, this Alexander McQueen jacket, a steal at £6,595 and (un)fortunately sold out. It is a work of art.

Red is the New Black. Here are some lovely red things:

Left to right, top to bottom: Alexander McQueen bag, Oscar de la Renta necklace, Converse classic hi-tops, Christian Louboutin shoes, Ocabini cashmere poncho, Alexander McQueen scarf, DVF Warhol scarf, Anne Demeulemeester boots, Bvlgari sunglasses.