Fashion Inspiration: First Look | Inside the new French Vogue

Where French Vogue goes, everyone follows. The glossy's September issue (featuring separate covers of Kate Moss, Lara Stone, and Daria Werbowy in the same Dolce & Gabbana dress) hits newsstands in Paris earlier this month and inside are Emmanuelle Alt's inaugural design tweaks since becoming editor-in-chief last year.

Happy Weekend: A Brand New Month | September

 

"Some people are settling down, some people are settling and some people refuse to settle for anything less than butterflies."

~ Carrie Bradshaw.

Darker, colder days are becoming more and more frequent in the not-always lovely UK, and as much as I hate to admit; summer is officially over. I don't ever deal with this time of year well.. Thank goodness the boy & I are Thailand-bound in ten sleeps...

A Guide To: Champagne

"Come quickly, I am tasting the stars!"

~ Dom Perignon, at the moment he discovered champagne.

{a guide to:}

Champagne. A light sparkling wine made only in the champagne region of north-eastern France, is different from all other sparkling wines in the world for three major reasons:
* a wine can only be labelled as champagne if it is made in the champagne region of france

* to be called champagne, it must be made only from the pinot noir, pinot meunier, or chardonnay grapes which grow in that region
* true champagne, as opposed to other sparkling wines, gets its bubbles by undergoing the fermentation process twice: once in barrels and again in bottles.

Spotlight on: Ladurée

No rendezvous on the Champs-Elysées is complete without a stop at my favourite "fabricant de douceurs & gourmandies": Ladurée, in all its gilded grandeur.

In the early 1900s, Pierre Desfontaines, cousin of Ladurée's founder, Louis Ernest Ladurée, took two almond meringue cookies and joined them with a divine ganache filling - creating the macaron as we know it. Prior to that, macarons were simply cookies, first brought to France in 1533.

Take Me Away: Cannes

Formerly a small fishing village, Cannes is now a glamorous and expensive seaside town. Each May, the Film Festival rolls into town and the A-List descend onto the French Riviera.

Cannes is located just half hour drive north east of Nice, 45 minutes from Monaco and around an hour and a half of Saint Tropez. The beautiful beaches, streets and architecture combined with the glamorous hotels, restaurants and nightlife make Cannes my favourite stop along the South coast of France.