When Too Much is Not Enough

What would the bastard lovechild of Mary Poppins' bag & Aladdin's magic carpet look like?

You can't help who you love

And what would you knit if the doors of perception were cleansed?

No narrow chinks in Selina's cavern

"The pink also shall dwell with the blue, and the green shall lie down with the yellow; and the zig and the zag and the chevron together; and Selina shall lead them":

The shoes, she says, are nothing to think on

It's been a while (my bad). Selina hasn't changed though. Apart from her clothes, which are constantly evolving. It's like that conveyor belt on The Generation Game, which in turn is like life itself. What's next, no one knows. Pointless to try to keep track of it. And yet...

Selina has no idea of where the jumper comes from. No idea. Was she drunk when she bought it? No, that's not it. She just doesn't know, alright. And she shouldn't have to explain herself. The trousers, on the other hand, are another matter. OK so they're 100% acrylic and therefore hard to trace directly back to Mary Poppins and Aladdin BUT the influence is nevertheless clear. A Genealogy of Harem Pants, by Selina from north London. A work she's researching as we speak. These came from Camden. The waist is surprisingly high and shirred at the back, which Selina doesn't like at all. Luckily the jumper not only covers the waist, but also distracts us from, well, from just about anything other than SELINA. We beg, we borrow and we steal, we take out credit cards with elephantine APRs; anything just so as we can afford to PAY HOMAGE.

"What were you thinking when you built this outfit?" we ask.

"Colour, I was thinking colour," she says.

You sure were, O Muse, and now so are we.

I think they call it tripping.

Selina: naked

Because that's what you've all been thinking. Admit it. No posts on this blog FOR A MONTH and you've all been imagining our heroine pootling about in the altogether.

Now for the truth. No, Selina has not been naked. But she has been pootling about.

And she's still pootling today, in this:

Selina looking at a guineafowl while doing an impression of a guineafowl: trippy, eh?

Green, yellow, white, pink, purple, black; and many shades in between. When you factor in the orange for the hair, the red for the glasses and the blue (lapis?) around her neck, there's nary a colour under the sun that doesn't have an embassy upon Selina's territory. 

She bought the vest from South African street vendors at the Edinburgh Festival back in 1984. South African? Well, the guineafowl may be everywhere now but it originated in southern Africa, seat of Selina's beloved Zim. Here's a close-up:

Detail of guineafowl featuring a small hole and errant stitches, bearing testimony to the vest's vintage

At first she claimed not to know where the skirt came from, before later deciding that it was from Camden Market. At any rate, it's quite unique, yet subtly so. In an echo of the two-toned full-circle 1950s skirt she wore back in June, this number employs the same subdued sherbet yellow and white palette. However, this time the language is that of raw-edged appliqué brocade, and the message is deconstructed Art Nouveau. But of course. So some poor sod painstakingly cut out all the brocaderie yet- lest anyone think it a big deal - they left it unhemmed. Let's have a closer look:

"Just something I whipped up in my lunch hour."

We asked: "Did you know that the guineafowl was monogamous?"

SELINA SAYS: "Really? We used to keep them at home in Ireland. It's a pretty international bird."

Well, Selina, we think you're a pretty international bird.

In just about every sense. 

Selina is away

Sigh. Huff. Puff. Ho-hum.

Selina is away.

This is how our office looks, and this is how we feel:

Feelin' blue. Short-pile, hard-wearing mottled blue.

Yes, Selina is on holiday - in Portugal - and won't be back until next week.

All we can do is hope she comes back dressed like this:

This is Miss Portugal. But Selina could win Miss Anything.

So stay strong and até-logo!

Making you squeal

Shhh... Stop it. Don't. Just don't. Put down whatever you're doing. Just put it down and look.

There. Are. No. Words.

How often in your daily life do you encounter a true mystery? Think about it. We live in a world where answers are a sneeze away via the interweb. But you can't Google Selina's style, can you? You can't reduce Selina to an algorithm.

Look at the detail above. Can you guess what it is? Can you even guess where it comes from? OK so you're viewing it on a blog about Selina's style, but does that really get you any closer to the truth? It's all too elusive. But don't worry, we'll come back to that.

The real story today is ORANGE and TEAL. Because orange and teal will make you squeal. Alright, alright, calm down, we know what you're thinking. It's been done before. It's old.   And you're right. Orange and teal is a tad yesteryear. But did you realise that Selina has been dying her hair orange SINCE 1983? That was the year that Israel withdrew from Lebanon for crying out loud. The year that....urgh... what's that?... Is it the sinking realisation that Selina may have been copying someone?

Thatcher was re-elected in 1983, the same year
that Selina first cracked open the orange dye

Ahem, let's not even go there.

Back to orange and teal. We've agreed the combination is not really news, but it's still a story. And boy was Selina telling it well today: it was like one big circuitous relay, like beacons aflame on hilltops in succession, like Chinese whispers, like, well, like orange and teal on a style icon. Orange hair nodded to a long-sleeved teal t-shirt, which nodded to teal tights and then on to orange shoes, and right back up again to teal eyelids. Selina just knows how to make a colour combo rollick, ripple and multiply.

The t-shirt is teal, it just came out sort of blue in the photo

The eyes have it

Can you even have square-toed-winklepicker-brothel-creepers?
I don't know, but I know that Selina can.

And just in case you thought her t-shirt was plain, how's about a butcher's at this watermark. Crafty, eh?

Why be plain when you can be bubbly?

My goodness we're almost getting out of breath with this survey of Selina's style today. We feel like we've been punched in the stomach. "Punched?", you say? Maybe by a great chunk of unpolished malachite, entrapped in a silver ring setting by a French Ivoirienne called Veronique?

A chunk like this, perhaps?

Biff!

And in case you're wondering about the cowrie shells, well they're from Ghana and THEY USED TO BE MONEY.

Well, that's almost a wrap of our Selina style write-up today. We hope you readers appreciate what goes into these in-depth studies because we're more exhausted right now than a cartographer mapping Norway's fjords. We say 'almost' a wrap because there's still the mystery left over from the opening image. Did you guess? Of course - you're right. It can only be a detail of Selina's trousers:

This is the view you get when bowing down at the altar of Selina

Who else would own a pair of Aztec-Zebra-Ndebele mashup leggings? For it's leggings like these that bring us all to this blog. Forget 'who else would own.' Let's start with 'who else would wear?' Or, better, 'who else could rock?' Because rock them she does.

We asked: "How much thought went into assembling your outfit this morning?"

SELINA SAYS: "Oh, absolutely none."

We're still lying on the floor in shock.

If you like 'What's Selina Wearing' why not leave us a comment? Perhaps you have something you'd like to ask Selina yourself. You may not get the answer you want, but you'll surely get the answer you need.

Breaking News!

Here at 'What's Selina Wearing' we're celebrating a journalistic first for 2012. Yes, we have quite a scoop for you. We know what you're thinking. Has Mohammed Morsi been declared victor in the Egyptian elections despite the army's attempted power grab? Has Greece announced it's leaving the Euro?


No. It is far more weighty and significant than all of that.


For today is the day that Selina has elected to debut her toes. Her painted toes. With highs of 21 degrees and a gentle, caressing nighttime low of 15, Selina has decided that today - 19th June - is The Day of the Debutoes. And here is the evidence: 

Sumer is icumen in!

Leave swallow-spotting to the twitchers. If you want an augury of summer, cast your eyes down.


As for the rest of Selina's outfit today - wow, what a treat we have in store for you. 


Overall she swung something of a 1950s hourglass silhouette, but there were surprises and depths to delight the careful admirer.


First, let's enjoy this photo of Selina in her natural habitat:

La voilà

Her skirt is crisp and full. But it is complex. In a playful nod to vintage design, it is somewhat austerely buttoned down at the front. And if you look at the photo you'll see one of the surprises we were talking about earlier. Yes, Selina is wearing a two-tone skirt. Here it is opened out, flirtatious as a peacock's feathers:

Selina's skirt is a twofer

Now let's talk about the shirt. Adjectives that leap to mind include: painterly, free, songful, fresh, blazing. We see paint-strokes:  bold ones. We see flowers whose petals we can almost feel against our cheeks. And what's this? Why, in spite of a traditional button up collar, the sleeves have no buttons at all. Indeed they are tapered at the wrist!

Another surprise!

As if tapered sleeves, two-tone skirts and freshly painted toenails weren't enough, we have another surprise for you today. Wait for it. OK here it is: SELINA WAS WEARING TWO EARRINGS. Yes, you did read it right. Here's a picture of one of them:

The other one's the same

Selina says they're shell-like but we like to think that the spiral reflects the infinite enigma at the heart of Selina. The enigma that - perversely - deepens the more you get to know her. The enigma that thwarts all attempts at conquering. That leaves us flailing. Grasping for solid ground. Something to hold on to, for heaven's sake! We can but spin, lost in a haze of Selina's style. We will never know her.

We asked her: "What do you want people to feel when they see you?"

SELINA SAYS: "I want them to feel fresh. I want them to feel that summer is here."

We do, Selina. Thanks to you, we do.

Selina Takes Flight...

... well almost.

Because in colours like these, the sky really is the limit.

Today Selina was wearing what she calls her 'mural painting shirt', given to her by the person who made it in Thailand, and worn while painting a Matisse mural in a residential home in London's West Kensington. She's not quite sure how it was dyed, but has ruled out the tie-dying technique. Any ideas, readers?

Now, if you look closely you will see that Selina's hair today is coiffed in an ever-so-slightly more conservative style than usual. Indeed there is something almost bourgeois about the evenness of the 'bouffe' around the temples, don't you think? Bear in mind you have to see her quite regularly to be able to notice nuances like this, and that's one of the reasons why we're so glad to share an office with her. But what does it mean?

Today was one of those days when you think you're having a conversation with Selina but what is actually happening is that her socks are having a conversation with her hair. In fact they're positively fornicating together. Makes you feel like a bit of a gooseberry, eh?

We asked her, "Selina, why are you wearing orange socks today?"
And she replied, "Because my yellow ones are in the wash."

So deceptively simple, Selina, so deceptively simple. You are a riddle.

An Irish Queen

Selina understands bananas, and they understand her

It ought to be enough to post this photo and leave it at that. Does Selina really need a commentary?

Maybe Selina regretted not wearing her signature canary yellow today. Maybe she just likes bananas. But whatever it was that drew her to them, we had to take a picture. We just know she is more interested in their colour than their taste. She is not so much looking at them as communing with them.

And what was Selina wearing today? Venetian trading beads, of course, purchased in Ghana and threaded into necklaces and bracelets by Selina herself. And a silk green top, shortened by the lady in question, to fit her needs, and no-one else's. The bottom half of her outfit was muted: washed blue linen trousers and the lime green shoes featured in her famous fuschia outfit.

But more important than all of this was the activity - or lack of it - on Selina's earlobes...

Because one is enough

Yes, that's right - Selina was only wearing one earring - in this case a beautiful beaded example purchased in her much loved Zimbabwe - or 'Zim', as she likes to call it.

"Selina - why are you only wearing one earring?", we asked.

"Because I only have one ear pierced", came the simple yet ludic reply. 

If that little exchange doesn't sum up the Selina enigma then I don't know what does.

Now for the bottom part of the outfit:

Green silk top shortened and edged by Selina

SELINA SAYS: "Blue and green should ne'er be seen, except upon an Irish queen". Quite.