Judging A Book By Its Cover

Someone somewhere needs to win the lottery soon so that they can buy me this Olympia Le-Tan for Christmas.

It looks like a book but is in fact a bag.  Genius, eh?  Plus Catcher in the Rye’s always been one of my favourite books, even though I only read it because I wanted to appear a precocious teenager.

I’m fond of 1984 too so if anyone would like to supply me with this, it wouldn't go amiss as a suitable Christmas present.

There’s something about touting your (self-believed) intellect in your sartorial choices, it’s simultaneously both nauseating and charming.

Natalie Portman’s got the Lolita version, which I’ve also taken a liking to.  I’ve never read Lolita so probably shouldn’t covet the bag too much. I imagine if (in an alternate universe where I was rich/ a film star) I managed to own it, I’d get know-it-alls everywhere snootily asking my opinion on the novel.  I think this as a vainglorious girl myself who would relish trying to trip Natalie Portman up in this way. Yes I'm a terrible and crap person.

Rather than making me want to read Lolita though, the bag’s made me want to take up embroidery so I can make an appliqué version of that Valley of The Dolls cover I recently posted.  Or plan to rob a local shop so that I can afford the £895 price tag that's on the Olympia Le-Tan.

Effort. I should just buy a book instead and carry it around, pretending it's a bag.

Gritty Realism Versus Mindless Kitsch

Finally watched Swansea Love Story on the VBS internet channel after reading a post on internet as the medium of the future for socialist films.  It's just a tad harrowing so I had to try to take my mind of it by reading Valley of the Dolls.  I forgot that Valley of The Dolls dresses itself up as a glitzy text about fast Hollywood living but is actually about three women's addiction to pills and their ensuing downfall (the 'dolls' in the novel are the sleeping and slimming pills that were rife amongst American stars during the time the novel is set in).  It didn't quite give me the escapism from the film since it's also about drug abuse and the vicious cycle of lives controlled by addiction.

I then decided to embrace my inner airhead and researched pink typewriters instead.  This wasn't entirely random; I read in the Valley of The Dolls introduction by Julie Burchill that Jacqueline Susann wrote the bestselling novel on one, and I just thought that was just about the epitome of mindless kitsch and probably what I need in my life right now. I found some on ebay but they're all in America and the prices are a bit steep...

Ok, still can't stop thinking about Swansea Love Story.  I feel just like I did after watching Requiem For A Dream.  Although probably not as bad as my old housemate and her boyfriend did after their spontaneous viewing of it.  They're both still scarred after borrowing the DVD from my room thinking it was a rom com.

So with total trepidation, here's Swansea Love Story's trailer, for your viewing (dis)pleasure:

Let me know your thoughts if you end up watching the film.  It's incredible and definitely worth watching, just ever so slightly depressing. You can find it on VBS.

Biba Pickings at the Library

Feeling smug that I've always wanted to read Valley of The Dolls and didn't just pick it up for the Barbara Hulanicki-designed cover.

Feeling unsmug as I got it from the library which means that if I now go out and purchase a copy I'm definitely only buying it for the aesthetic purposes of the Barbara Hulanicki-designed cover (I barely ever re-read books).

The cover is gorgeous though, I love that whole Biba/ Pucci look. I'm a total sixties chick at heart.

♥