Eye Spy in the Dark

I am now officially home from England, but I probably have another week or two of posts (depending on my procrastination) to put up before the landscape changes back to Georgia. I’ll get to the bittersweet bits later.

In the meantime, I thought I’d share my experience riding the Eye at night and eating at the OXO Tower. I’ve ridden the eye twice during the day (though once was arguably near dusk), and both times the view has been fantastic. However, what happens at night that you don’t get during the day is better signaling. During the day, all the buildings are equally lit, making the important ones vaguer and less distinguishable at first glance. At night, all the lights go out, except the important ones. Okay, that may be an exaggeration, but it is easier to identify the more relevant places, as generally they are the ones whose lights stay on. Even still, there are a lot of lights. Come on, this is London we’re talking about.

 Next, I walked down the Bankside (past an adorable Christmas market installed for the season) to eat at the fabulous OXO Tower. A quick fun fact that I ran across the other day– the OXO Tower was originally a power station (to rival Battersea) but was purchased in the 1920s by Liebeg Extract of Meat Company, producer of the OXO Cube. At the time, there was a ban on skyline advertising, so in converting the old power station, windows in the shape of “OXO” were added to establish a sort of advertising dominance across the central London skyline. Though the company has passed, the windows have become so iconic that they survived a 1970s plan to demolish the building.

Today, there is a brasserie and restaurant (recommended in 1,000 Places to See Before You Die) sponsored by Harvey Nichols. We ate in the brasserie (it was about 10 pounds cheaper per person), and I was very delighted. You can see my meals below. I especially like the cider soaked pear.

Outfit Details: Shirt: Gap | Choker: H&M | Jacket: Tally Weijl | Trousers: Isabel Marant | Shoes: Pour La Victoire | Purse: Kate Spade

Oakland and Octane

Hello everyone, I’m sorry for the brief hiatus, but in the past week I have gotten settled into my new apartment in the Southbank of London and started Fall classes. After wading through I the mountains of paperwork that accompany the new year, I finally got onto the blog today only to realize what a backlog of unpublished posts and lovely comments were waiting for me! For this reason, I’m going to do my best to have a sort of “purge” week and go ahead and publish posts from this summer that are probably barely acceptable after Labor Day (but I hate to throw them away). In addition, I wanted to let you know that over the Fall I will be using this forum as a way to keep my family and friends updated on my travels, so you have to forgive me if some of my posts wax towards travelogue rather than fashion discussion. However, while in the land of Harvey Nichols with my new Chelsea boots in tow, fashion will never be too far from view. 😛

Tldr: A bunch of posts coming out this week, and you can look forward to my travels this autumn!

In the meantime, I wanted to show you some pictures of what I would consider well-executed eyelet that you could probably get away with until October (at least in Georgia).

Julia (shown above) and I explored Atlanta’s Oakland cemetery a few Sundays back. It’s famous for its beautiful architecture and for holding Margaret Mitchell and Maynard Jackson’s graves. There are also a large number of confederate graves here, as the cemetery was founded in 1850. Today, you can still see where some Union soldiers who spent the night in the cemetery wrought havoc, changing dates on certain graves so that people died before they were born, etc.

Julia’s ensemble is composed of a navy eyelet J. Crew tank with pleated eyelet J. Crew shorts, and shoes from Bass, I think her outfit is a good example of looking very cute and put together while staying cool and comfortable. Without exerting too much time and energy, she’s pulled together something you can wear to coffee, the mall, or afternoon lunch without the discomfort that usually comes from anything not-a-sundress touching your body in Georgia.

After Oakland, we skipped across the street to Octane Coffee shop. Inside, Octane has teamed up with “The Little Tart” for a great pastry selection. Personally, I enjoyed the apricot ginger scone, though that should come as no surprise. Thanks for viewing!

Alert: Mary Katrantshoe and you!

At this stage in the game, I’m trying to decide how to get all my stuff home, and I must say it remains a very open question. My shoe collection at school seems to have doubled since I’ve gotten here. It started very practical, and frankly, it’s just bloomed (but in the best of ways)!

However, I bring you this dualist’s dream, this virtual shoe arc as part of the Harvey Nichols giveaway. Until April 30th, you can twitter or instagram a picture of your shoe collection (or part of it) for a chance to win 500 POUNDS (so many dollaz) AND a pair of heels part of the new Mary Katrantzou x Gianvito Rossi fab collab. Be sure to add @mary katrantzou @harveynichols and @marykatrantshoe to your entry.

Comment on this, if you want with a link, because I want to see your closet! Also, the fuzzy pink and the purple shoes are for sale in my vinted/ posh closets!