(i) i still cannot fathom that other people can be at different points in their life as i am in mine..
it's a difficult thought process to explain, but i just cannot seem to grasp how others have not graduated yet..i have..how can they not have ?
how can people only be in grade one now ? or discovering anzac biscuit mixture raw for the first time..or the magnificence of having realised that your leg midriff can in fact stay snug ALL evening if you just tuck your winter sleeping attire into your socks before tucking yourself in ??
it's all exploding my brain.

(ii) i remember jotting this down from one of our more prehistoric business procedures at work toward the beginning of this year: 'pay attention to grammar and spelling - both to protect your own reputation and intelligence, and to avoid irritating your recipients who are distracted by careless mistakes.'
is good. is nice.

(iii) today, and i do this far too often, i was walking about 20m behind a close ex-highschool girlfriend - preparing myself to excitedly meet and greet, to the point of thinking about what i would hurriedly cram into our 2 minute encounter before the pedestrian man again becamse begreened - but bailed at the last minute. she looked fabulous, confident, intelligent, adult-ed. from what i could make out sans specs, she had donned a button-up as part of her corporate get-up, amidst a hair cut that she suited to a T or even a U, heaven-scraping heels that were accompanied by the gait of a gazelle, and a graceful hand gesture signalling a daily farewell to some colleagues. we may have even snatched a milisecond of eye-contact as our eyes skimmed near each other as i approached..and raced into a neighbouring newsagency. i got scared.
no, i didn't get scared. i see this friend often these days, working together in town seems to have highlighted just how minute the youthful working population of this city appears to be. there's so many familiar faces to me already, and i've only been slaving away upstairs in the CBD for a few months now (with only a few months to go, you can count on it)..
i often skip out on meeting people i know and appreciate - even if it would only involve a hi, smile, or a wave in passing. i'm sure its not laziness or anxiety or even a physical disgust when comparing our appearances at that point in time.. i just bail all. the. time.
it's a horrible habit that i can never seem to explain or justify to myself above a C+ standard.

though today the fact that i was wearing a polo tucked into a pair of ill-fitting handed down work pants that have neither commited to being high-waisted or lowslung surely did not help my sudden social suicide. i'm sure only swimming instructors wear polos to work as uniform. i had been so excited for months / weeks / days / hours leading up to the grand work uniform shopping experience - with a prepaid budget of $500 to knock thyself out with.. and walked away with two $20 polos that were more or less forced upon me by middle-aged women in comfortable / practical shoes and sockettes. a horrible outcome.
yes my shirts are an o-kay navy, yes they fit o-kay, but..what happened to the button-ups worn loosely, casually..what happened to the work pants of perfect fit, fabric and hip height that i saw paraded in a great deal more than once in the uniform catalogue that we had scoured the day before ?
heartbreak and too quiet an opinion let me down, and now i'm paying the ever painful weekdaily price.

BUT.
irrelevant ish.

the winter kilos may or may not just be getting me down with my overexaggerated polo plight.
well, that, and the fact that my hair seems to have started to fall out. again.

(below are some thought-provoking sections from the song No Problem by Paul Colman Trio - i've been meaning to post them for months now..i don't necessarily believe in all that is said but i think that it is all pretty bloody well-said nonetheless):

i've no problem with compassion or a little bit of dignity, but you haven't asked me a question.. all you do is you patronise me.
we're all God's creation, not just those who agree. if we don't love every heart, then we make God a lie and we simply justify all the reasons why people don't believe.

so this guy says to me..he said, you know, i don't really hate God - i just don't like it when people assume that i don't know anything just because i don't go to church - i said that's fair. he said, yeah, you know they assume that i know nothing; that i believe in nothing. and we talked for a while..and this is pretty much exactly what he said.. (well, we sort of made it poetic..and we took out some words..)
this is what he said;
i've no problem receiving from a God who could set me free. i've no problem believing maybe He came and He died for me..but condemnation and judgement i hate, conversation and endless debates. sometimes i feel i know more than all these crazy people knocking on my door.

yes.

STEALTH WEALTH - The less-is-more approach to luxury.

she wore a full-length navy military coat, blue jeans and a white t-shirt even though it was spring. around her neck hung a piece of buffalo horn, something she had picked up on a recent trip to Tanzania, visiting her father who had married a woman just a year older than her at 29 with a penchant for lion taming. her boyfriend's name was Disco, she didn't drink anything but vodka and water and said that one of these days i would understand. i watched her all evening, mesmerised. yes, she was beautiful but it was the subtleties that won me over. the fine gold ring on her finger. her long untamed the mane of hair. a gentleman's watch with a slightly worn band sitting loosely around her slim wrist. boots up to her thighs; butter-soft, distressed leather in cornflower blue. i was just 20 and on a date with her childhood friend but right from the beginning he stood no chance - besides the fact that he was far too old for me, i couldn't take my eyes off her. she was the most stylish woman i'd ever seen. the kind that makes you want to go home and throw out everything in your wardrobe and start afresh. at the end of the evening as we were getting our things to leave she glanced down at my purse. recently purchased, with all the money in the world (plus some kindly donated from my parents), it was the bag of the moment. an instant status symbol, wherever i took it made me feel as though i belonged to a special club. naively, i expected her to glow with appreciation but instead she look at me perplexed.
'darlink', she said in her husky Italian accent, 'diamonds are best worn on the soles of your shoes'.

this was my first brush with an approach to luxury best described as 'stealth wealth'. a term Forbes.com first coined as being 'about accoutrements that are subtle, not necessarily readible by the general public but by those in the know.'
put simply, its showing off by not showing off.
in a luxury-saturated world where counterfeit exists on street corners and runway designs hit chain-stores just days off the catwalk, its more than tempting to dress down when dressing 'in fashion' no longer sets you apart. that is, personalisation and bespoke are desirable when conspicuous consumption and logo mania are not.
the people who wear it are mostly the style cognoscenti, believing they don't need labels and logos to showcase their taste and wealth.

in a backlash to highly covetable IT items, they choose chic and sophisticated over the latest fad. the Balmain jacket, while beautiful, is so ubiquitous it is no longer compelling, but a pair of royal blue suede Jil Sander pumps are pure understated elegance. teamed with an old shirt and sharp blazer, its a currency that deals in rare and provocative.
regardless of whether the stealth trend has been driven by credit-crunch frugality or sustainable consciousness - there's little debate against the fact that under-the-radar aesthetic is gaining momentum among the fashion elite. the embodiment of classic refined style, Nancy Pilcher, vice president for editorial development at Conde Nast Publications Asia Pacific and long-time Editor of Australian Vogue, admits she's been watching 'a little bit of a change'.
'i don't know whether anybody else has picked it up with (French Vogue Editor) Carine Roitfeld, she's the leader of the pack, the one that the paparazzi in Paris run because of who she is, but she used to wear the most outrageous shoes and the most outrageous clothes and she was very out there', she says. 'now, you would not pick her out from the fashion crowd. i've been monitoring it. she wears very classic court shoes or a bootstrap wrapped around her ankle but not a heavy chunky shoe with a big platform or anything, none of that. her hair, you know, i think she might have had hair extensions in. she's just together. very classic, almost classic going back to a classic thing.'

if anyone knows how to do classic - its Pilcher. white shirts are her signature; she's world-renowned for her collection of YSL Smoking jackets and admires Tilda Swinton because she's not swayed by fashion: 'when she goes to the Academy Awards', she says, 'everyone else was in foo-foo and she can come in this very simple sheath with no makeup and hair back and no jewellery.'

adverse to buying things that scream a label or brand or even a season, for Pilcher, its not about having the latest or the best but feeling comfortable, which in turn is a confidence boost.
my husband always says to me, 'i don't know why you don't just leave your suitcase packed, how many pairs of black pants do you have to take and how many white shirts do you have to take?'
and i say, 'you don't understand, i know exactly what's going to suit me and i think that's a confidence that you build up after a certain amount of time that you just know what's going to work for you', she says. 'i had a big meeting in Japan about a month ago after the shows..and we were talking about how there is an obvious change coming through in fashion that's much more to classic, to basic, to ladylike and wondering how to portray that in your fashion without it looking boring.'
the alternative, however, is much worse, is it not?

in the words of impossibly pared-back Coco Chanel, 'elegance is refusal', and luxury isn't about putting on a new dress. there's nothing stylish about being a slave to fashion: investing heavily in a trend or a covetable luxury piece then finding an imitation on every girl walking down the street.
Pilcher agrees: 'the girls at Balmain can wear all those things because the designers give it to them and they want them to wear it, so it becomes a fashion thing. but by them wearing it, it then filters down, you know that filtering system, it takes a while for it to become mainstream, everybody's wearing it and it loses its cache and it loses its specialness.
'luxury to me means mostly the texture, the fabric, the finish on something and details', says Pilcher. 'i think you can tell something that's a copy and something that's the real thing just by certain details. maybe its a fashion eye where you can tell that something is really great if its not screaming out a brand or label.'

the momentum of the clandestine trend adopted by those in the know is not lost on Holli Rogers, Buying Director at Net-A-Porter, who believes the new luxury is about a personal knowledge.
'the industry has always worked on insider knowledge, but today's luxury consumer is extremely informed and choosing to demonstrate this in different ways than in past years', she says. 'IT bags are around, but they're subtle and without logos. consumers are also buying items that are more artisnal in nature and are showing much more interest in how things are made. at Net-A-Porter, we're buying into a lot more designers that specialise in just one particular category such as Clare Tough and Duffy who focus on knitwear - and they do it brilliantly.'

more noticeably, the classics are more in demand than ever.
'we have stocked Bottega Veneta's classic Intrecciato series of hand-woven bags since 2001', says Rogers.
'these bags remain hugely popular with our customers across the globe. also, there are the new classics like the PS1 from the design team at Proenza Schouler - the handbag does not stay in stock.' Net-A-Porter has been the online saviour to stealth shoppers around the world, Jemima Khan included, and offers a plain wrapping service alongside its branded offering.
'discretion has always been a factor of online shopping and our discrete packaging was something we had in the pipeline for some time before launching it', says Rogers.
'the timing was certainly right, but the move was really about offering customers more choice and another way to shop.'
its not just consumers facing a new sobriety when it comes to trends; the most powerful luxury brands in the world are increasing their reach - and their sales - by staying true to their roots and embracing their ability to do understated. a recent Millward Brown report of the world's top 10 most powerful brands actually showed that the top of the list - Vuitton, Hermes and Gucci, all improved their position by focussing on their history and heritage, and shying awya from anything that looked a little too nouveau.
Louis Vuitton's recent pre-fall collection was a sign of the zeitgeist. despite being the most widely recognised brand in the world, the creative direction leaned on subtle craftsmanship0 with logos in the lining, and the Damier print 'visible-invisible' throughout a crocodile handbag. even a leather-trimmed sailing jacket had the option to turn the label around for serious stealth mileage.
likewise, Hermes, a prototype for hidden luxury if ever there was one, has attributed their reported sales spike to their focus - they do not veer off-brand, but instead concentrate on their classic pieces. Fiona Young, Communications Manager for Hermes Australia, says the Hermes ethos is clear.
'respecting the history of the house, its craftsmanship and tradition, we constantly look to the future in innovation and design', she says of the brand - a saddler and harness-maker since 1837 - that in April took part in creating equestrian events in the heart of Paris, a homage to their first customer - the horse. proving the brand is trend-adverse to a large extent, Young confirms there is 'no demographic at Hermes'.

the fact that the pieces are not too accessible (think of the waitlist for the Birkin bag) makes it all the more desirable to buyers with furtiveness in mind. their time-honoured styles mean consumers would be more willing to invest in items that they perceive will be enduring.
'take the Kelly bag for instance', says Young. 'handcrafted from start to finish by one master craftsman. it takes, on average - depending on the size of the bag, 14 hours to saddle stitch. producing a Kelly bag takes a total of 18 hours of work; 18 hours of patient care, of able and careful effort by a single worker in the service of an art. a bag in need of refurbishment will be returned to the same craftsman who created it, his personal stamp is imprinted on the leather of the bag.'
true luxury always comes back to personal touch. it should never be imposed but always refined by your own taste. whether its a buffalo horn or a Birkin; if you've got it, don't feel you have to flaunt it.

- Jess Blanch, Russh Magazine June-July 2010.