The Women's Room | Daily Life and Style Inspiration

Novels & Biogs, We Are ReadingSeptember 23, 2011

Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel

By Amanda

Did anyone else see the wonderful Culture Show Special with Hilary Mantel last week? Amazing. We have already read Wolf Hall, which we’re pleased to hear is getting a sequel, but hadn’t read Beyond Black. I am currently half way… Read More

Things We LoveSeptember 23, 2011

Grenson for women

By Amanda

We’ve wittered on about the long awaited launch of Grenson shoes for women, we’ll they are here at last. Fabulous quality, comfortable from the very first moment and beautiful….we are in love. Available on line, if you are in any… Read More

Fashion & BeautySeptember 23, 2011

We love: Carrieles de Colombia

By Amanda

We were tipped off about these gorgeously textural bags Carrieles de Columbia by one of our readers. The Carrieles bag is an historical design dating back over 400 years, In folkloric Colombian tradition, an authentic Carriel should contain no less… Read More

Fashion & BeautySeptember 22, 2011

Spring/Summer 2012 colour

By Jane

As a colour forecaster I spend a lot of time making up ridiculous names for colours and deliberating over subtle shade differences. Why call it blue, when it could be cornflower or duck egg, or green when it could be… Read More

Fashion & BeautySeptember 21, 2011

London Fashion Week new names : Tim Soar Woman

By Amanda

Before the madness of Fashion Week, Jane and I popped along to meet the charming ( and rather dashing, we thought) Mr Soar in his CFE-sponsored studio space in Mare Street. Tim is well known for his great menswear tailoring… Read More

Fashion & BeautySeptember 20, 2011

Inside Story: A sensory fashion fantasia

By Jane

Last week we were invited to the amazing Dennis Severs house in Spitalfields, to an event curated by the lovely Kate Evans, owner of Precious, an up market women’s fashion store, also based in Spitalfields. Kate, former buyer for Harrods… Read More

Fashion & BeautySeptember 19, 2011

London Fashion Week new names: Felicity Brown

By Amanda

New names often struggle to get started in fashion, there are a million hurdles in the way and you have to negotiate them with no experience, fresh out of college. Nightmare. Which is why the Centre for Fashion Enterprise is… Read More

Home & GardenSeptember 18, 2011

John Lewis: nostalgia for our generation

By Jane

John Lewis get it right yet again, as they target their core customers, us fortysomethings for whom sophisticated technology meant a eight track and a Sony Walkman! Just the right combination of emotion and nostalgia (that Black Beauty theme tune… Read More

Out & AboutSeptember 17, 2011

PS We’re on the M&S blog…..

By Amanda

Check us out on the M&S Stories blog!….you didn’t know M&S had a blog? well it’s a little ‘below the radar’ currently as it’s only been up an running for a wee while and is still building up its content.… Read More

Art & CultureSeptember 17, 2011

London Design Festival: highlights from the V&A

By Amanda

As well as London Fashion Week, it’s also the London Design Festival starting on Monday, which is now in its ninth year and bigger than ever. There are some inspiring things to see, not least at the V&A Museum, which… Read More

Things We LoveSeptember 16, 2011

The Half Pint Mini Garden

By Jane

What a cute little present this would make for someone who doesn’t have a garden. The Half Pint Mini Garden is a cleverly wrapped herb growing kit packaged like a milk carton. It includes a ceramic container, peat pellets and… Read More

Fashion & BeautySeptember 16, 2011

NYFW: the odd couple

By Jane

I have no internet at home (don’t get me started on Virgin Media’s incompetantcy) so bear with me over the next few days as I blog from friends houses and my ipad! I draw the line at internet cafes, as… Read More

Fashion & BeautySeptember 15, 2011

The last ever +J collection at Uniqlo: here’s what we bought

By Amanda

So, the +J collection by Jil Sander for Uniqlo was launched last week, we shopped it while fighting back the tears and resisting the urge to buy EVERYTHING, because it was the last collection ever. Here’s what we thought and… Read More

Novels & Biogs, We Are ReadingSeptember 14, 2011

The Drowning Pool by Syd Moore

By Amanda

We met the smart and funny Syd Moore at a Semple’s Secret event where she showed us her Super Strumps. When she said she had a new book out we were keen to read it. She’s a proud Essex Girl… Read More

Fashion & BeautySeptember 14, 2011

NYFW: Streetstyle

By Jane

The increasing popularity of streetstyle blogs has seen the outfits worn by the attendees of catwalks shows become almost as important as the collections themselves. The fashion editors in particular have risen to the challenge and rock up with a… Read More

Fashion & BeautySeptember 13, 2011

Mary Portas and Clarks -a chance to chat

By Amanda

Blimey, that Mary Portas works hard, last week she was launching Mary Portas at the House of Fraser, this week -Wednesday 15th at 6.30pm-she’s launching her shoe collection in the Clarks store in Oxford Street and would love you to… Read More

Fashion & BeautySeptember 13, 2011

Head & Shoulders is 50!

By Amanda

As you know, we love a hair event here at TWR so when Head & Shoulders invited us to celebrate being 50 this year by practising a couple of ‘hair do’s’ with its creative beauty director Peter Lux (is that… Read More

Fashion & BeautySeptember 12, 2011

NYFW: Jill Stuart

By Jane

New York fashion week started on Friday and for us fashion sorts that means the next three weeks will be spent trawling catwalk images every day, in a desperate attempt to keep up with ‘who’s done what’. If you don’t… Read More

Home & GardenSeptember 11, 2011

Westfield/Eastfield Stratford

By Jane

So the new Westield shopping centre opens in Stratford on Tuesday and if you are an Eastender like me this may or may not be good news, depending on what you think of shopping malls. Personally I am not a… Read More

Fashion & BeautySeptember 10, 2011

Fashion’s Night Out: Clements Ribeiro scarf dresses

By Amanda

Yes, we went to Fashion’s Night Out, I might blog later on my views, but to be honest, they are a bit ‘grumpy old bag’ at the moment, lots of nicely dressed young things shopping…..where’s the story in that? So… Read More

Art & CultureSeptember 9, 2011

We love: Ladybookbird blog

By Amanda

Ladybookbird is a gem of a blog reviewing books for kids and teenagers. It’s written by mother and daughter team Maudie Powell-Tuck, who has a weekend job in one of West London’s best Children’s bookshops, and Dinah Hall, interiors journalist… Read More

Health & HappinessSeptember 8, 2011

MiddleagedSingle.com: WLTM SSM, GSOH

By Jane

So, I’ve agonised over my profile, downloaded some half-decent photographs, been approved by the web site’s administrator and am now sat in front of the screen, eagerly waiting to receive my first missive from Mr Right. Of course, his first… Read More

Art, Culture & Craft, We Are ReadingSeptember 7, 2011

The Shirt off His Back by Juliet Bawden

By Amanda

A gorgeous craft book that tells you how to make cute stuff out of old shirts. I have a soft spot for this idea as I have been collecting both my sons and middleagedad’s shirts for many years to make… Read More

Fashion & BeautySeptember 7, 2011

We love: John Lewis’s Fashion Pavilion (with Osman Yousefzada)

By Amanda

To celebrate High Street Fashion Week, John Lewis, the epicentre of Keep Calm and Carry On-ness, has spiced up its Oxford Street fashion floor with a stylishly creative Fashion Pavilion, in which is housed a limited edition collection from designer… Read More

Fashion & BeautySeptember 6, 2011

Shopping with experts: Kurt Geiger’s Everything But The Dress

By Amanda

We are self confessed Kurt Geiger shoe fans here at TWR, so news that there was to be a handbag and accessory collection called Everything But The Dress got us in a right spin of anticipation. Better still, the brand… Read More

Things We LoveSeptember 5, 2011

The Grenson womens collection

By Jane

At last our wishes have been granted, as traditional men’s shoemaker Grenson have created a womenswear range. Every time I see a pair of the beautiful men’s tan brogues I long to be able to wear them, but sadly having… Read More

Fashion & BeautySeptember 5, 2011

Blitz: curated vintage

By Jane

One of the reasons I dont like shopping in vintage stores is because somewhere in the back of my mind I think I am still going to be able to pick up something fabulous in a charity shop or car… Read More

Middle Aged MumSeptember 4, 2011

Middleageadmum.com: the one where the teens take to Twitter

By Jane

In our house it tends to be the oldies who adopt new technology first. MAD and I like to think of ourselves as early adopters and knowledgeable about new trends, so back in the day when we told the teens… Read More

Fashion & BeautySeptember 3, 2011

More nice clothes to look at: Wait & See in Milan

By Amanda

Yesterday’s post was all about stylish simplicity, today’s post is an inspirational photo session from the Milan boutique Wait & See, showing what you can do with colour and texture (we talked about Wait & See before here I received… Read More

Fashion & BeautySeptember 2, 2011

Utterly gorgeous simplicity: COS Autumn Winter 2011

By Jane

Have we told you how much we love absolutely everything about COS? … Read More