Five Stylish Reasons Why I'm Visiting Rome

Tomorrow I will be browsing the streets of Rome, preparing for a vintage Vespa trip (woop!) and tracking down the very best gelato that money can buy. However, the city is often overlooked in favour of Milan when it comes to fashion, but Romans certainly know how to dress and how to shop. This is why I couldn't wait to drop in on them...

[Image via Tumblr]. Delfina Delettrez is one of Rome's hottest designers.

1.  I want to check out up-and-coming Italian brands, such as jewellery designer Delfina Delettrez, whose skeleton hand belt is one of the coolest anatomical pieces I've ever seen. She's also part of the Fendi family, so clearly talent runs in the blood. 

2. Up-and-coming districts like San Lorenzo, home to uni students and street art, are worth visiting for style inspiration. I'll be looking out for sharply dressed young Italians and hot vintage shops - apparently Via Dei Volschi is the place to hit.

3. There's a brilliant flea market culture here that means you're never far away from second hand goods. Most of them take place on a Sunday, which I'll unfortunately miss, but one low-key event runs all week behind a church. I'll be popping by to see if I can pick up some bargains.

4. You can't ignore the impact of the great Valentino Garavani on Rome. The man who made the city his catwalk (and held a party at the Colosseum and a retrospective at the Ara Pacis) still leaves his mark here, with his studio continuing to produce eye-catching couture under the watchful eye of two successors, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli. They've brought us the rockstud shoes, which I love. 

5. The Trevi Fountain, one of the most famous sights, is being rescued and restored by Fendi, with Karl Lagerfeld at the helm. I'm expecting the statues to be clutching Fendi Baguette bags in no time at all. 

Besides all of this, I'll be visiting the shopping malls, boutiques and street sellers scattered around the streets and will be keeping my eyes peeled for Roman street style. It's also more than likely I'll be doing a Julia Roberts in Eat Pray Love and needing to track down bigger jeans that can accommodate my love of Italian food...

Anyway, I'll be back at the weekend, with a fresh copy of Vogue Italia and loads of photos. Stay tuned.

Death: A Self-Portrait, at the Wellcome Collection

This Thursday I headed to the Wellcome Collection in London for the first day of an important new exhibition which tackles one of society's biggest taboos: death. Though we all know that death is an inevitable conclusion - the 'self-portrait' of the title refers to you, too - it's something which most cultures struggle to articulate and prefer to leave as an afterthought. The Wellcome does the opposite and confronts the Grim Reaper-shaped elephant in the room, which is both brave and eye-opening.

 La Vie et Mort postcard, c.1900-1910, with unforgettably clever imagery.

All images via the Wellcome Collection.

The exhibition is based on the huge collection of deathly artwork amassed by former art dealer Richard Harris (no, not the bloke who played Dumbledore), gathered over 12 years and covering all kinds of different cultures and time periods. From a 1300s skull sculpture to 1800s Japanese paintings, right up to an incredible plastecine piece (2011) by an Argentinian art collective, the theme of mortality is ever-present. If you're one of those people who finds morbid imagery a bit too creepy then this is a brilliant place to confront your fears and end up feeling a bit more comfortable with skeletons, bodies and rituals.

When Shall We Meet Again? Gelatin silver print, c.1900.

As someone who loves skull motifs and wrote an incredibly long art theory essay on anatomy in the art world, I was certainly in my element exploring the collection, from vanitas portraits to anonymous photos featuring people posing alongside skeletons. Death is one of those things that unites us all, rich or poor, and it completely goes against the kind of things I write about on this blog for the rest of the time - all those outfits and handbags mean very little once you're gone, except for maybe helping you to look your best in the funeral home. This exhibition looks at some of the ways in which people try and keep memories alive, through portraits and ritualistic altar building, and also the ways in which they begin to accept death, such as in the use of memento mori in imagery. There was also a lot of attention paid to anatomical discoveries and the advances that helped us to understand the body, which obviously involved cadavers, and there was a really touching sepia photo from an anatomy class that was titled 'When will we meet again?' that caught my eye. The contradiction of preserving bodies by exploring an expired one is something that anatomists are constantly aware of.

If you're at all interested in skulls and conceptual imagery then you need to pay a visit to the Wellcome Collection; it's free, fascinating and you will come away with some very big questions. There is also a series of events accompanying the exhibition, so take a look at the website and find out how you can get under the skin of this important topic. It definitely puts things in perspective.

Death: A Self Portrait - 15th November 2012 - 24th February 2013.

Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE (nearest tube station is Euston Square).

I'm Off to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Again!)

This week there may be less blogging as I'm off to Edinburgh for the yearly trip to see the Fringe in action, along with my partner in crime: my mum. I'll be keeping Twitter updated with our exploits (which look set to include a mixture of comedy, theatre and curry - not necessarily in that order) but I can't guarantee I'll be able to physically blog as the laptop is not part of the meagre luggage allowance. Hopefully when I get back then I'll have a bit of Edinburgh street style to show you, as well as an extensive collection of leaflets from the lovely (if very over-enthusiastic) leafleteers on the Royal Mile.

This year I won't be climbing the Monument with its claustrophobic staircase straight out of Hitchcock's Vertigo, but we do have plans to climb Arthur's Seat, the massive hill overlooking the city, where a man who changed his name by deed poll to Lionel Ritchie is said to hang out. It should be interesting to say the least.

[Photograph my own. Please ask before reproducing.]