“People of the world, Spice up your life!” – Spice Girls

I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want: afternoon tea followed by a trip to the theatre. Oh, make mine a Spicey one.

As if releasing stage musical Viva Forever at the Picadilly Theatre in London wasn’t enough, the famous five have launched a Spice Girls-themed afternoon tea, at Harvey Nicks no less (they’re all Posh now). Curious to see the musical, I decided to take my friend for her birthday (cue jazz hands). The icing on the cake was finding out about the afternoon tea at Harvey Nichols’ Fifth Floor Restaurant, which had me whipping out my wallet to make a booking faster than Victoria Beckham with a Birkin in Hermes.Harvey Nichols’ fifth floor is undoubtedly its hidden gem. Split between a ‘food court’ (if it can be called that) and a food hall, it houses a bar and a roof terrace, which serves a more casual afternoon tea, as well as the more exclusive Fifth Floor Restaurant. If you do stop by for tea make sure to also leave enough time to browse the food hall’s enchanted aisles, which are filled with quirky and unusual fare: where else can you find pig-shaped sugar sprinkles next to a can of Whoop Ass?Once inside the Fifth Floor Restaurant we were seated at a window facing the splendid façade of the Mandarin Oriental hotel, across the road, and having made our tea selection (a winter-appropriate Tea Pigs chai latte each) we sat back to enjoy the ambience, tasteful décor and awesome music choices: after Daughter to Father by Lindsay Lohan came on I knew I’d found my spiritual home.

The food arrived on a plate decorated with London black cabs and was comprised of finger sandwiches, scones and cakes. The sandwiches and scones were delicious, if traditional, but it was the miniature desserts that really made us sit up and zig-a-zig ah. Each dessert represented one of the girls: a Union Jack lemon cake for Geri, strawberry mousse in a baby bottle for Baby, a Chupa-Chup-inspired cake pop for Sporty, a leopard print chocolate for Scary and an old bag, I mean, handbag for Posh. As it happens the cakes were a little too exotic for my taste (I’m mainly a plain chocolate kinda girl) but they were almost too gorgeous to eat anyway so after scones, chai latters and a second helping of sandwiches, we were too full to do much more than sample each one. The staff, who were incredibly courteous and the right level of attentive, instead let us take a couple of the cakes home.After a good few hours snaffling up calories, the BFF and I eventually achieved that ‘festively plump’ look we were after and waddled off down Picadilly to see the show. Viva Forever review to follow shortly!Tickets for Viva Forever start from £20 and tea at Harvey Nichols is £35 per person but there is a special offer on for booking the two together: see here for more details.

Life in plastic, it’s fantastic – Aqua

I’ve been meaning to publish this post for ages and yesterday I got the prompt I needed after reading about a Barbie-themed café that recently opened in Taiwan. Whilst such kitsch enterprises are generally expected of pretty much most countries in Asia (there was a short-lived Barbie shop in Japan whilst until 2011 Shanghai boasted a six-storey Barbie megastore), neither Taiwan, Japan nor China, even, can lay claim to the world’s first Barbie emporium. That honour goes to… Argentina. (I know, right?) Whilst the Casa Rosada (above), in Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, is one of the city’s most famous landmarks (it’s where Eva Peron famously waved to the masses and remains the home of the Argentinian president) it’s by no means the only pink house of note in Buenos Aires. A few miles away in the exclusive Palermo district you can also find Casa de Barbie, a larger than life dream house comprising a shop, café, salon and play area (the latter of which is mocked up like Barbie’s bedroom). 

The Barbie House was dreamt up by an enterprising local businessman who licensed the brand from Mattel and the concept has proved revolutionary, creating a completely new and immersive experience for Barbie fans, where they can not only play with the original fashion doll but emulate her too, getting their hair done at the Barbie salon, munching on Barbie-glazed biscuits in the café and sitting at B’s very own desk in the playroom. The store even sells matching outfits for the dolls and their owners.While the store mainly caters to the kiddy contingent (unsurprisingly), after a lot of flapping and miming (on my part) the sales assistants eventually managed to locate a Barbie t-shirt in my size for me to take away as a souvenir. Sadly, I couldn’t take the car!Undoubtedly the Casa de Barbie was the inspiration for the six-floor Barbie concept store in Shanghai, which I had hoped to visit before it was shut down after only two years, apparently due to low sales figures. I am therefore delighted to hear about the new café in Taiwan!Whilst Barbie remains a controversial figure, calls that she is “outdated” and “deserves to die a death” (see the Telegraph article link, above) smack of humourlessness. Barbara Millicent Banks, to give her her full name, has had over 100 different careers (at the last count) including doctor, architect and astronaut and, as such, is an inspiration to women everywhere. Moreover, given that at 54 years old she shows no signs of slowing down, far from dying a death she’ll probably outlive us all. And no, not just because she’s plastic.

The outfits were arranged in three ‘acts’ across three rooms. It was unclear what each ‘act’ symbolised because it looked like the costumes weren’t in any order at all. There were two Scarlett O’Hara dresses: one in the first room, next to Charlie Chaplin, and one in the second room, on the same platform as Darth Vader and Gollum. Similarly, Darth Vader was nowhere near Hans Solo, who was in the third room, along with two Marilyn Monroe dresses that were also far apart. Why?Meanwhile, a clumsy attempt to group period dresses together came across as excessive: there was one medieval gown from Camelot, four Queen Elizabeth I, two dresses from Marie Antoinette (above) and a number of others I didn’t recognise. Whilst each dress was stunning it was difficult to appreciate with such a mish mash of styles: the heavily beaded Elizabeth gowns next to the delicate sexy satin of 18^th century France. Had the four Elizabeth I gowns been instead displayed away from the rest, the effect would have been stunning.The third room lacked any cohesiveness at all, with one huge platform in the middle of the room containing outfits ranging from Holly Golightly’s LBD to Nicole Kidman’s Moulin Rouge gown to Kianu Reeve’s Matrix trenchcoat to Will Smith’s Independence Day army uniform. And of course, the Marilyn and Dorothy dresses at the end. Meanwhile the superhero costumes– Batman, Superman and Catwoman – were placed so far and awkwardly above visitors’ heads that it would be more efficient to watch the Blu-Ray if you wanted to see any detail in the costumes.None of this was aided by the bizarrely low lighting. Perhaps this was meant to create atmosphere but it just meant that I was straining to see the lace of the Black Swan tutu (above) in the third room while in the first room there were spotlights above some of the costumes which were programmed to turn off and on – a ploy that resulted only in slowing down the queue as visitors waited for the lights to come back on in order to get a better look at the costume before they moved on.As exciting as it was to see many of these costumes, the sheer volume lessened the impact of the true jewels (helped in no small part by the awkward arrangement of the costumes). For example, Sacha Barron Cohen’s Borat suit from Cultural Learnings of America. Not the green mankini, which at least had a cultural impact, but the nondescript grey suit he wears in the other scenes. I loved the film, but was its presence really necessary, particularly so close to John Travolta’s iconic white suit from Saturday Night Fever? Similarly, Ed Norton’s outfit from Fight Club – another film I really enjoyed – consisted of a t-shirt and trousers and was placed next to the spectacular gothic extravagance of the Addams Family costumes (above). It’s not that more recent films don’t have a place in the exhibition (I loved seeing Elle Woods’ pink suit from Legally Blonde 2 and Kate Hudson’s yellow dress from How to Lose a Guy in Seven Days) but it was inappropriate to have these dresses next to the Dorothy and Marilyn dresses, near the end of the exhibition. Instead, how awesome would it have been to see Audrey’s black dress and Marilyn’s white one next two each other, contrasting between the style icon and the sexpot. This was all compounded by emphasis on unnecessary and distracting technology, such as the actors’ moving faces on computer screens above the costumes instead of heads, when ordinary acrylic busts made to look like the actors would have sufficed.It’s a shame, because apparently this exhibition was five years in the making and the effort that went into sourcing the costumes was clearly phenomenal. All the right ingredients were there but the execution was faulty. As Elizabeth I might have said of a faulty execution: awff with their heads!

Hollywood Costumes at the V&A is on until 27 January 2013 before moving to Australia and the US. For more pictures and commentary on the exhibition, check out my column, Le  Geek C’est Chic, over at Unleash the Fanboy.

Hi! After taking a break for a while (partly to take a trip to Tokyo!) I’m back and raring to go. I’ve got lots of posts to catch up on and also a slightly less fashion-focused direction for the blog although no less geeky, girly or gothy!

Hell Bunny Zombie Unicorn Dress: These fillies eat My Little Ponies for breakfast

Sibling London Social Zombie Scarf: Twitter/Facebook/Pinterest rotted your brain? Yup, you’re a Social Zombie.

Hot Topic Zombie Girl Necklace: Because Barbie Girl is a Plastic

Iron Fist Zombie Shoes: Will make your feet look good enough to eat.

If you’d rather stay home for World Zombie Day, spend the day in your pyjamas pigging out on Brain Flakes and listening to Zombie by Taylor Momsen.

From the minute you enter the lounge at the W you feel like you’re in rock star paradise, from the glitter ball trees near the lifts to the cake stand made out of records (awesome touch). It also helped that our tea booking happened to coincide with the Sibling London fashion week after party so there were a lot of rock star looking people milling about.

The afternoon tea menu consisted of a small variety of sandwiches (replenished after we asked politely), delicious scones, clotted cream and jam, an absolutely divine chocolate mousse with a hazelnut crunch, vanilla meringue in the shape of the Rolling Stones logo, chocolate and passion fruit cakes, rose financier and a purple Victoria sponge. And not forgetting, of course, the incredible glittery leopard-print shortbread. After some Twitter banter with the Sibling crew, we also bagged one each to take away. Each item on the menu has been given a ‘rock n roll’ label, for example the Victoria sponge is ‘Purple Haze’ and the rose financier is ‘Every Rose Has a Thorn’.

Apparently W’s ‘Rock Tea’ is fairly new and since being introduced bookings for afternoon tea at the hotel have sky-rocketed. It’s certainly a fun twist on the usual afternoon tea shtick, on par with the Berkley’s Fashion Tea and the Sanderson’s Alice in Wonderland tea, at a similar price point to the latter. In keeping with the theme, the setting is more relaxed than other afternoon teas – in fact, we ended up sitting there until dinner time – and the decor alone is a talking point (see the wall of plates, below). All in all, the W ‘Rock Tea’ promises a reasonably-priced, fun and yummy afternoon offering a rock star experience without a group in sight.

W Leicester Square’s Rock Tea is available from 2-5pm in the W Lounge at £25 per person.

The first collection is out 1 November. For more picture check out the gallery below!

Last week Minnie’s Must Haves finally went up for auction on eBay, giving us our first look at the collection. Isn’t it fab? From dresses to shoes, necklaces to badges and, of course, not forgetting mouse ears, you can kit yourself out in exclusive designer garments created specifically for Minnie Mouse herself! Would you dare to wear any of these pieces?

Meadham Kirchhoff Jacket

Richard Nicoll Dress

Richard Nicoll Dress

Tatty Devine Necklace

Lulu Guinness Bags

Luke Hersheson Headband

Katie Hillier Necklace

Terry de Havilland Shoes

Andrew Bunney Badges

What You’ll Need

A clear polish (basecoat/topcoat)

Black, white, red and nude nailpolish

A black nail art pen

Cotton buds

Andrea Fulerton nail stickers

After painting on a basecoat, paint all your nails (apart from the ringfingers) black and paint the ringfingers nude. Once the black nails are dry carefully stick on a skull sticker and paint on a topcoat.

Once the ringfingers have dried properly, cut a rectangular piece of tape and stick it on the lower half of your nail. Paint the remaining half red (like an extra thick french manicure) and wait for it to dry. To paint on the polkadots dab some white nailpolish onto a piece of scrap paper and, using the cotton buds, dab it into the white polish and then use it to create the polkadots on the red half of your nail, making sure to first dab off any excess nailpolish. It’s helpful if you practise on the scrap paper before attempting to do it on your nail. Also, I use extra slim cotton buds from Muji, which tend to work better. Finally, once you’ve finished on the red part of your nail, dab one white polkadot onto the nude part of the nail to create an eyeball.

Now take the black nail art pen (mine is from Sally Hansen) and draw a line across the corner of the nude part of the nail. Once it’s dried, make a little circle in the middle of it for the eyepatch. Then use the nail art pen to make a black dot in the middle of the eyeball for the pupil. Finally, draw on a little mouth. Once you’ve made sure it’s all dry, paint on your topcoat and you’ll have perfect pirate nails!

Y’see, me beauties, there’s no need to shiver your timbers now that there be some real pirate booty on yer fingers just in time for Wednesday, arrrrrr!

Having long cornered the market as fashion’s favourite food brand (I first stumbled across them at a Mulberry party back in 2008, where they re-created shoes from the collection in biscuit form, see picture below) they have outdone themselves this season by creating an entire tin filled with edible clothes, shoes and accessories. And the best part is that one size fits all! Although it’s probably best not to think about clothing sizes once you’ve made your way through the entire tin…

The Fashionista tin (containing 16 biscuits) is out now, priced at £38.50