Breakfast at Portobello

Even after spending all my money on an exquisite lace trimmed silk little black dress, I couldn’t turn and cross the street, but started window gazing at this new store in town. You might say that there is nothing better than a beautifully handmade dress to comfort a lost soul. You would be wrong, as there is nothing better to do, when one has nothing to do with his life, than window shop. 

The act of buying is rewarding, but the act of seeing is comforting, and that of wanting hopeful. I am always happy immediately after purchasing something, at that moment nothing seems to give me more joy than to have it and own it as if it was meant for me since the first seconds of its creation. 

Yet as we do with people, we tend to forget that the thing beside us in bed, be it person or object has needs and requirements that are independent of our own. And that is usually the moment when we either discard it as a used rag and complain that this is not what we signed up for, or, in those few fortunate cases, learn to live with it and adjust. 

Thus for those of us blessed with rich active imagination to see and want is better than to have. Indeed, imagination is better than reality, but there is something more than that. To want is to anticipate, to hope, to be enthusiastic, and more than anything, faithful. To dream that anything and everything is possible . . .

Did I say that I have nothing to do with my life? I must have confused it with “I have everything to do with my life.” We are young, happy, vibrant and free. But more than anything we have the option of choice, and this is when everything starts to look a lot like nothing. 

Do you remember when Holly asked Paul if he ever gets the mean reds, that moment when you’re suddenly afraid and you don’t know why? I always get them, morning, afternoon and evening. I mostly get them at night lately, because it is around 3 or 4 a.m that I wake up with the mean reds. I am afraid of choice, of making one choice, any choice, of making it wrong, of making it right, basically of disturbing the fragile, small, but steady universe that I have. To stay, to go, to buy, to forgive and forget, to go on, to stay behind . . . and I wonder why I have the reds in the middle of the night. 

That is why, till now, my best cure was window shopping. A beautiful display of a limited number of wonderful things with which I have not been acquainted yet, now that is comforting.

And if you’re window shopping you might as well do it in style. The new store in town that I mentioned before is called Portobello, a part retail store, part tailor’s is a beautiful open space where you can see the seamstress work on you possible future dress. With exclusively natural fabrics, pure silk, cotton, and sometimes wool it is a feast for the senses. And with a subtle and delicate color scheme that includs shades of grey, white&black, nude, and the occasional pop of hot pink or orange it is bound to make your reds disappear.

Comfortably window gazing while eating a heart shaped gingerbread cookie in . .

Day Birger et Mikkelsen Safety Pins Jacket

Zara LBD

Vintage Belt

Thrifted Bag

Wolford Tights

Louis Vuitton Booties